![]() They may present written reports, tables, and charts to team members, clients, and other users. Mathematicians and statisticians present findings from their analyses and discuss the data’s limitations in order to ensure accurate interpretation. Some help write software code to analyze data more accurately and efficiently. They also conduct tests to determine the data’s validity and to account for possible errors. In their analyses, mathematicians and statisticians identify trends and relationships within the data. Statisticians determine the type and size of this sample for collecting data in the survey or poll.įollowing data collection is analysis, which involves mathematicians and statisticians using specialized statistical software. For most surveys and opinion polls, statisticians gather data from some people in a particular group. To solve problems, mathematicians rely on statisticians to design surveys, questionnaires, experiments, and opinion polls for collecting the data they need. We will talk about Johnson’s specific contributions to NASA in a moment, but being a modern mathematician has changed quite a bit since then. NACA and NASA were relatively progressive employers, paying the young women far better than they’d get in other forms of office work they even employed married women with children.” During inequitable times, women were paid far less for this essential work than a man in a similar role would be.Īccording to this Smithsonian Magazine article, “The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA (the precursor to NASA), hired several hundred women as computers at its Langley base in Virginia, the historian Beverly Golemba estimated. The term computer being used for a human had been in use since the 17th century.Īt some point in the 19th century, work as a computer became gendered. So, Johnson joining a computer group at NACA meant she was working as someone who could perform the precise calculations needed for spaceflight. In 1953, a “computer” was someone who performed computations, or mathematical formulas. But when she got into the field, computers were just beginning to become the automated tools they are now. Johnson’s life was featured in the book and movie, Hidden Figures. She joined the West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory in 1953, working for the precursor to NASA. She graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a PhD in mathematics. ![]() ![]() By 13, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College.Īt 18, she enrolled in the college itself, where she made quick work of the school’s math curriculum and found a mentor in math professor W. Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of several breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life.īorn in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, in 1918, her intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers vaulted her ahead several grades in school.
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