Katherine Johnson was an African-American mathematician from 1953 to 1986 working for NASA. It was a human machine. Johnson was a pioneer at a time when minorities held very few positions in math and science. His work determining spacecraft flight routes was monumental, helping NASA successfully put an American into orbit around Earth. Then his work helped land astronauts on the Moon. Katherine Johnson was born in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, in 1918. As a young girl, she loved counting things. She counted everything, from the number of steps she took on her way to the road to the number of forks and plates she washed while washing dishes. Johnson was raised with a passion for mathematics. She really wanted to go to school from a very young age. Now 90, Johnson vividly remembers watching her older siblings go to school and wishing she could go with them. Once Johnson finally started school, she excelled so much that she was in high school by the age of 10. She will start university at 15! Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Johnson participated in the mathematics program at West Virginia State College. She loved being around smart people, she said, and knew every professor and student on campus. One of his mathematics teachers, the famous Dr. William W. Schiefflin Claytor, recognized Johnson's brilliant and curious mind. “You will make a great mathematician for science,” he told him. (A research mathematician does many things, including solving major mathematical problems.) Claytor then encouraged her to become one. Johnson said: "A lot of professors tell you you'd be good at this or that, but that career path doesn't always help. Professor Claytor made sure I was trained to become a research mathematician. Claytor made sure Johnson took all the math classes she needed to satisfy her passion for life. He also created a course on the geometry of space – just for her Geometry is the study of. lines, angles and shapes When Johnson graduated from college, he was still segregated from the United States. During this process, "segregation" meant that, in many ways and in many ways, different races. were segregated from each other. African Americans were never able to get jobs in math and science. It was also very rare for women of any race to have a math degree. The only professional job available to Johnson at that time was teaching after graduation. She taught for several years but stopped when she had children and got married. She began teaching again after her husband fell ill, to support her family. When Johnson was 34, she applied for a position on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. NACA was the official name of the agency that later became NASA. NACA was just beginning its space research work in the early and mid-1950s. NACA hired women – including African Americans – to become "computers." These female computers measured the mathematics of engineers. When Johnson was 34, she applied for a position on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA..