https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf Allison Shulman en-us 2017-12-21 13:50:04 UTC 2025-10-11 13:04:35 UTC hello@padlet.com ashulman https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217700159 Katherine was born on August 26, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. She grew up and went to school here. She finished 8th grade at the age of ten, and finished college at the age of fourteen. She graduated highest in her class, with degrees in mathematics and French. Then she became one of three students to desegregate West Virginia University, but did not finish her course because some students were not very kind to her. ]]> 2017-12-21 13:53:17 UTC https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217700159 ashulman https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217703409 In the late 1930s Katherine taught math and French at schools in Virginia and West Virginia. In 1939 she married James Francis Goble and had three daughters, Joylette, Constance and Katherine. In 1952 when Katherine found out that NASA was hiring African American women to check calculations and do other important tasks, she applied. Katherine was accepted for a position at the Langley Space Center in Hampton, Virginia. Not long after Katherine was accepted, she was transferred from the African American computing pool to Langley's flight research division. That same year her husband (James Francis Goble) died from a brain tumor. In 1958 Katherine was among the people trying to get a human into space and back safely. The following year Katherine remarried to Navy and Army officer James A. Johnson. In 1961 the task of plotting the path for Allan Sheperd's journey to space fell onto her shoulders. Katherine had to check the work of the machines providing the go-ahead to propel John Glenn into a successful orbit around the Earth in 1962.]]> 2017-12-21 14:07:17 UTC https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217703409 ashulman https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217853746  In 2015 Katherine was awarded with the Presidential Medal Of Freedom by Barack Obama. September of 2017, NASA dedicated their new research building to Katherine. It is called the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility.  Katherine is still alive today and she is currently 99, and she now lives in a retirement home in Virginia. ]]> 2017-12-22 13:51:27 UTC https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217853746 ashulman https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217855689 Katherine made it possible for NASA to get John Glenn and Allen Sheperd into space. without her it might not have happened. ]]> 2017-12-22 14:04:33 UTC https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217855689 ashulman https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217856131 "Like what you do and then and then you will do your best." Katherine enjoyed math. And even though some of the other NASA workers weren't the nicest to her she enjoyed her job. She liked what she did and she became a very successful person.]]> 2017-12-22 14:07:34 UTC https://padlet.com/ashulman/4z7xmcney7vf/wish/217856131