Katherine Johnson

Birth: August 26, 1918; Death: February 24, 2020 In 1932, Johnson earned a B.S. in mathematics and French from West Virginia State University. For her graduate studies, she attended West Virginia University in 1940. She gained fame for having checked the computer's calculations before to John Glenn's historic first orbital spaceflight by an American in February 1962, when digital computers were still relatively new and unproven. She then carried on by performing the calculations for the 1969 first genuine Moon landing. I find Katherine Johnson's ability to succeed by overcoming racial barriers to be inspiring and fascinating.

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