Honoring a pioneer // President Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Katherine G. Johnson of Newport News on Nov. 24 during an event in the East Room of the White House. The 97-year-old was one of the few women and African-Americans who worked for NASA when she started as a pool mathematician at the space agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton in 1953. Her mathematic computations have influenced every major space program from America’s first manned space flight in 1961 to today’s Space Shuttle program. Mrs. Johnson was one of 17 individuals honored last week by President Obama, some posthumously, with the nation’s highest civilian award.
