Katherine Johnson

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 represented people to go into the scientific fields, and give them credit for their accomplishments, as was done for Katherine Johnson.