“Hidden Figures” scientist Katherine Johnson dies at 101
Katherine Johnson was born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918. Her work has earned her a presidential medal of freedom and a congressional gold medal.
Mathematician Katherine Johnson died Feb. 24 at the age of 101. Johnson worked at NASA from 1953 to 1986 calculating flight paths for spaceships which led to putting an American in orbit around Earth and later, the moon landing.
Taraji P. Henson played Johnson in the 2016 film ‘Hidden Figures’ which focuses on the careers of three black women: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monet), as they work to put the first American, John Glenn (Glen Powell), in space.
Criselda Toto Pacioles, Chapman mathematics professor, said Johnson proved that equality is plausible.
“She opened the door for women to be recognized in the field of mathematics and science in general,” Pacioles said. “Her contributions made women prove that they could be doing the same things that men could do around that time, especially for women of color.”
According to a biography written by Margot Lee Shetterly, who also wrote the 2016 book “Hidden Figures”, Johnson was one of three black students chosen to integrate West Virginia’s graduate school. While working at NASA, Johnson performed trajectory analysis for America’s first space flight, the 1961 Freedom 7 mission. She later became famous during John Glenn’s orbit around Earth in 1962 for double checking the orbital equations of a computer system developed for the flight. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“I don’t have a feeling of inferiority. Never had,” Johnson once said. “I’m as good as anybody, but no better.”
Pacioles said Johnson made her proud to be a woman in mathematics and that said she looked up to her female professors as inspiration when she was in college.
“When I was in college is when I was inspired by my professors at the time when most people who are pursuing math are male, and one of them was my faculty advisor when I was an undergrad,” she said. “She was working with mathematicians from all over the world and she was one of the few women at the time who was doing that.”
Pacioles said she has felt some resistance in pursuing mathematics as a female, and said work still needs to be done to increase the percentage of women and women of color in STEM fields.
“Even now (as) a professor in teaching, the students have different levels of how they see men versus women as their professor, especially if it’s a math course,” Pacioles said. “We still have that difference in our views of men and women. But we can see that more and more women are leading the pack of mathematicians around the world.”
There has been progress in this field, such as in October 2019 when two women performed the first all female spacewalk, according to the Washington Post. However, women still make up only 28 percent of senior executive leadership roles and just 16 percent of senior scientific positions at NASA.
Black and African Americans make up only 1.3 percent of Senior Level and Senior Scientific and Professional positions at NASA, according to their 2017 equal employment opportunity strategic plan.
“That still shows that women still need to push more to be treated equally in NASA. But at least on a positive note we are seeing a little bit of progress because at least we are a quarter there,” Pacioles said. “I hope in the years to come, many more women will be inspired by Katherine Johnson’s story and all other women in mathematics and STEM fields to pursue their degrees in science and work for NASA so that in 20 years from now we will be more than 50 percent women in those fields”