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Ted Fujita

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  Tetsuya Theodore "Ted" Fujita was a Japanese-born American meteorologist. Given the nickname "Mr. Tornado," Fujita is credited with creating the F-Scale, or Fujita Scale, that is used in classifying tornado intensity. Having a life-long fascination with tornadoes, Fujita earned a degree in mechanical engineering and became an assistant professor at the physics department of the Meiji College of Technology in Japan, and later joined the meteorology department of the University of Chicago in the United States. His research and discovery of weather phenomena such as the microburst and the creation of the F-Scale continues to save live today. I am sure there are a lot of people like myself that did not know where the F-Scale came from, or even that the "F" stands for Fujita. We should raise awareness of these lesser known facts so that minorities in scientific fields are not forgotten by the general public.
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Katherine Johnson

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Katherine Johnson began her journey to becoming a renowned mathematician when she enrolled at West Virginia State College at the age of 15, where she met her mentor, Professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, who instructed her in the ways of mathematics. After graduating, Johnson took to several teaching jobs before a relative told her about an opening in the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory (the NACA would later become NASA). Despite facing segregation and sexism in her place of work, Johnson's mathematical prowess would allow her to be moved to the Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division at NASA, and she would later be called upon to perform calculations for John Glenn's orbital mission. Her calculations allowed NASA to complete the mission, which paved the way for the United States' role in the space race. To combat discrimination in the modern age, we should encourage under rep...
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