This week, I am going to discuss a cool tech lady very near and dear to my heart: Dr. Saiph Savage. I met Dr. Savage at a neighborhood block party in the fall of 2016. We painted matching “Hello World” (the name of the first program every student writes) wine glasses together and discussed coding and technology. Her and her husband are assistant professors of computer science at West Virginia University (WVU) and visiting professors at Carnegie Mellon University. After meeting her, I emailed her asking if she would allow me to do research in her lab, and she was extremely open and encouraging. Dr. Savage actually started the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at West Virginia University!

Image courtesy of Saiph.org

Dr. Savage received her bachelor’s in computer engineering from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City and her MS and PhD in computer science from the University of California. Her thesis topic was “Understanding and Supporting Online Audiences.”

Much of Dr. Savage’s current research centers around online bots and blockchain, and how technology can be used for political and civic engagement. In 2015, Dr. Savage helped create a system called “Botivist” that recruited “humans to do social good for their community” (HuffPost). This bot looked for keywords relevant to those complaining about corruption in Latin America, specifically the words “corrupcion” (corruption) and “impunidad” (impunity). The Botivist tweeted at people complaining on Twitter, asked them relevant follow-up questions, asked them “to volunteer to help the problem they were complaining about” (Savage). Her study found Botivist could actually modify people’s behavior and encouraged them to share their concerns with others through social media.

In addition to having the technical knowledge to implement systems such as Botivist, Dr. Savage is also concerned about the ethical implications of online bots. “It’s relatively benign for bots to notify humans about specifically hateful or dangerous words – and let the humans decide what to do about it…But it could be alarming if we ask bots to influence people’s free expression of genuine feelings or thoughts.”

Dr. Savage is nationally recognized for her contribution to the field of human-computer interaction. She was named an Under 35 Innovator by MIT Tech Review in 2018, had an article published by Huffington Post, and was interviewed by the BBC. If you want to read more about Dr. Savage’s work, I would highly recommend visiting her website: http://www.saiph.org. I have really only scratched the surface of all the cool things this tech lady has done!

Under Professor Savage, I worked on a research project for e-NABLE, a nonprofit organization that makes 3D printed prosthetic hands for children. I also created my own twitter bot, the Statler Bot, to answer commonly asked questions for the WVU Statler College of Engineering. Last summer, I worked on a team with Dr. Savage at Carnegie Mellon to research online crowd workers, specifically on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platforms, and the methods they use to earn more money while working online.

Image courtesy of WVU

In addition to being an extremely talented and gifted young woman, Saiph Savage is an incredibly kind and helpful role model. I would not be where I am today if it was not for all the work she put into developing me as a programmer, researcher, and person. All in all, I would say she tops the charts of cool tech ladies.

Sources

Savage, Saiph. “Fighting Online Trolls with Bots.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 Jan. 2018, www.huffingtonpost.com/the-conversation-us/fighting-online-trolls-wi_b_14102534.html.

At this point, my readers should not be surprised to hear the inventor of the term “software engineering” was a woman. Margaret Hamilton, an American mathematician and innovator in computer science, picked this term because she wanted to “legitimize” software among other types of engineering, while making it distinct from hardware. Hamilton was working with software when it still was a “wilderness,” and knowledge was largely passed down from person to person. This new field was vital to NASA’s Apollo missions, and Hamilton’s efforts largely enabled the United States to put the first man on the moon (Creighton).

Image courtesy of Vox

But who was Margaret Hamilton, before she became one of the first voices of the tech industry? She studied at the University of Michigan and Earlham University, earning her bachelor’s in mathematics from Earlham in 1958. She married James Hamilton and worked on weather-predicting software at MIT to support him as he pursued his law degree at Harvard. Hamilton acknowledges she was always was a minority in her field, but she was encouraged by her female math professor Florence Long to pursue mathematics. Hamilton was also inspired by her father, who was a philosopher and poet, and her grandfather, who was a Quaker minister, to minor in philosophy. Hamilton claims “All of these influences from those related to the fields of mathematics and philosophy helped to decide and integrate what was important for the path that I would take in the fields of computer science” (Creighton).

In 1959, Hamilton started working in the Lincoln Labs on the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) project to create a program to identify “unfriendly” (enemy) aircraft. Hamilton says during this period she became interested in software reliability because “when the computer crashed during the execution of your program, there was no hiding. Lights would be flashing, bells would be ringing and everyone, the developers and computer operators, would come running to find out whose program was doing something bad to the system” (Creighton).

In 1963, Hamilton began working for NASA at MIT to create the onboard software the astronauts used during the Apollo missions. The stakes were high, as lives were on the line, but in the words of Hamilton herself “the greater the challenge, the more fun we had” (Creighton). Hamilton’s team successfully created software that displayed warnings to the astronauts, which turned out to be vital in ensuring their safe return to Earth.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Here, you can see Hamilton standing next to the hundreds of thousands of lines of code her team wrote for the Apollo missions, which has recently been uploaded to the code-sharing website Github (Collins).

After working for NASA, Hamilton started her own company, Hamilton Technologies, INC.  In addition to being a cool tech lady, Hamilton is also a mother, and brought her daughter to work with her during the evenings and on weekends to spend more time with her. In 2003, Hamilton received the Exceptional Space Act Award and in 2016 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in recognition of her pioneering work in software (“Margaret Hamilton”).

Sources

Collins, Keith. “The Code That Took America to the Moon Was Just Published to GitHub, and It’s like a 1960s Time Capsule.” Quartz, Quartz, 13 Feb. 2018, qz.com/726338/the-code-that-took-america-to-the-moon-was-just-published-to-github-and-its-like-a-1960s-time-capsule/.

Creighton, Jolene. “Margaret Hamilton: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Took Us to the Moon.” Futurism, Futurism, 19 Nov. 2016, futurism.com/margaret-hamilton-the-untold-story-of-the-woman-who-took-us-to-the-moon/.

“Margaret Hamilton.” What Was The First PC?, www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/margaret-hamilton/.

Gayle Laakmann McDowell is a familiar name to anyone who has ever studied for a coding interview. McDowell is the author of the best-selling book “Cracking the Coding Interview,”a coding interview preparation manual. I have personally used this book to study for my coding interviews, it definitely prepared me for my technical interviews last fall!

Image courtesy of Gayle.com

Coding interviews are much different than most other types of interviews. While other engineers may be asked big-picture conceptual questions related to their area of study or projects they have completed, software engineers have to code for their interviewers on the spot, on a white board (or in extreme cases, a shared google doc). These problems can vary in complexity, and interviewers oftentimes intentionally make their questions vague in order to evaluate if the job candidate knows the right kind of clarification questions to ask. If this interview process sounds awful, let me assure you it is!  McDowell’s book includes practice interview questions as well as interview strategies to make the process somewhat less awful.

McDowell’s expertise in coding interview prep comes straight from experience. She received her bachelor’s and master’s in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. During college, she interned at Microsoft and Apple, and worked at Google after she graduated. McDowell got bored with large tech companies, however, and wanted to try something new, so she joined a startup and got an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the Wharton School (“Gayle McDowell LinkedIn Profile”). Then, she started her own company, CareerCup.com, to help software engineers prepare for technical interviews.

McDowell never viewed her gender as an inhibitor to her success. Rather, she used it to her advantage. She claims, “since there aren’t many women [in tech], people are more likely to remember you. You don’t blend in, and that can make it much easier to build a strong network” (Hess). McDowell especially emphasizes the importance of helpfulness in networking, because if you want help from others “you need to be willing to help others too” (Hess).

McDowell also emphasizes the importance of strong communication in progressing in one’s technical career. She advises “communication skills will set you apart from the pack…It will allow you to effectively advocate on behalf of yourself, your team, or your company” (Hess).

In addition to being an extremely cool tech lady, McDowell is also a mother of two boys and an avid baker. Check out this cool Lego cake she made for her son’s birthday!

Image courtesy of Facebook

I will leave you with a piece of advice from McDowell I think is relevant to students of all fields:

“You can’t be afraid of going into an area that you don’t know much about – you have to be comfortable getting up to speed quickly in new and potentially intimidating areas. You need to be a consummate and life-long learner. The key is to ask questions, be curious and learn from your team.”

-McDowell, Gayle Laakmann, Cracking the PM Interview

Sources

“Gayle McDowell LinkedIn Profile.” LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/gaylemcd/.

McDowell, Gayle Laakmann, and Jackie Bavaro. Cracking the Pm Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology. CareerCup, LLC, 2014.

Hess, Ken. “Women in Tech: Gayle Laakmann McDowell Excels beyond the Stereotypes.” ZDNet, ZDNet, 9 Feb. 2012, www.zdnet.com/article/women-in-tech-gayle-laakmann-mcdowell-excels-beyond-the-stereotypes/.

Image courtesy of Happy Code

This week, we are going to learn about the life of Mary Kenneth Keller. Mary Kenneth Keller was one of the first women to break into the computer science field, and has made a lasting impact on society.

Before Mary Kenneth Keller broke into the technology field, she became a Roman Catholic nun at the age of 18! She was in the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubuque, Iowa (Edrington).

After entering the sisterhood, Keller began her career in academia. She earned her B.S. and M.S. in mathematics and physics from DePaul University. In the 1950s, she became interested in computing.  In 1958 at the all-male Dartmouth College, Keller helped create the programming language Beginner’s All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC). BASIC was designed to be used by the everyday professional, not just mathematicians. Now, those in business, healthcare, and other non-technical trades could harness the power of computing (Ballor).

In 1965, Keller became one of the first women to receive a PhD in computer science. She went on to start the computer science department at Clark College in Iowa, developing a whole masters program. Today, the Keller Computer Center at Clark College serves to honor her accomplishments while working at this institution (“Sister Mary Kenneth Keller”).

Like many other cool tech ladies, Keller saw the great power computing could bear on the future. She said computing’s “ function in information retrieval will make it the hub of tomorrow’s libraries ” (Edrington) and that “We’re having an information explosion, among others, and it’s certainly obvious that information is of no use unless it’s available” (“Mary Kenneth Keller”). Keller especially saw computing’s importance in not just making information widely available, but also impacting the education process. She wrote “”For the first time, we can now mechanically simulate the cognitive process. We can make studies in artificial intelligence. Beyond that, this mechanism [the computer] can be used to assist humans in learning. As we are going to have more mature students in greater numbers as time goes on, this type of teaching will probably be increasingly important” (“The First Woman to Earn a Doctorate”).  She established the Association of Small Computer Users in Education (ASCUE) to facilitate the use of technology in education. Keller essentially predicted machine learning, as well as the use of software in education (“The First Woman to Earn a Doctorate”)!

Keller wasn’t solely focused on developing her own technical knowledge, however. She wanted as many women to embrace computing as possible. She even allowed female students to bring their children to class if necessary (“Sister Mary Kenneth Keller”)!

Image Courtesy of ZME Science

In 1985, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller passed away, however, her legacy as a Catholic nun/computing mastermind will always be felt.

Sources

Ballor, Amy. “Sister Mary Kenneth Keller.” Acton Institute, acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-28-number-3/sister-mary-kenneth-keller.

Edrington, Kate. “Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, BVM: A Pioneer in Computer Science.” Envisioning the Future of Catholic Religious Archives, catholicarchives.bc.edu/2018/05/sister-mary-kenneth-keller-bvm-a-pioneer-in-computer-science/.

“Mary Kenneth Keller.” The Ada Project, www.women.cs.cmu.edu/ada/Resources/Women/.

“Sister Mary Kenneth Keller.” Introductions Necessary, introductionsnecessary.com/2016/06/07/sister-mary-kenneth-keller/.

“The First Woman to Earn a Doctorate in Computer Science Was a Nun.” National Catholic Register, www.ncregister.com/blog/astagnaro/the-first-woman-to-earn-a-doctorate-in-computer-science-was-a-nun.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

As someone who grew up moving around a lot (from Missouri to Illinois to Virginia to West Virginia) I feel a connection to the great technologist Dr. Anita Borg (1949-2003), who “grew up in Palatine, Illinois; Kaneohe, Hawaii; and Mukilteo, Washington” (“About Anita Borg, Co-Founder of GHC”). Not only was Borg an extremely intelligent computer scientist, she also was a forerunner in encouraging other women to pursue the field as well.

As a young wife, Borg worked at a small insurance company while her husband went through school. She taught herself to program and went back to school to get her ph.D. in computer science from New York University. For many years, Borg worked as a researcher in different organizations such as Digital Equipment Corporation and Xerox. One of her greatest technical accomplishments was “a performance analysis method for high-speed computing systems” (“Anita Borg , Researcher, Xerox Park; Founder, IWT”).

The hallmark of Anita Borg’s career, however, was her efforts towards encouraging women to pursue technology in the 1980s and 1990s, way before it was “trendy” to do so. After attending a male-dominated tech conference, in 1987 Borg was inspired to begin Systers, “an electronic mailing list on technical subjects exclusively for women who are engineers” (Hafner). Systers allowed women to “discuss issues they experienced at work and share resources with each other” (“Anita Borg”).

In 1994, Borg founded the Institute for Women In Technology (IWT). Today known as the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, this institute “seeks to increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology, and increase the positive impact of technology on the world’s women” (“Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology”). In the same year, Borg co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration to celebrate the life of Grace Hopper (a cool tech lady we discussed last week) and allow women in tech to network and expand their skillset. In 1999, former president Bill Clinton appointed Borg to the Commission on the Advancement of Women in Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology.

Borg received a plethora of awards throughout her career, including an honorary doctorate from Carnegie Mellon, the Juliet Gordon Low Award from the Girl Scouts of America, and the Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy, and Employment.

In 2003, Borg pasted away from brain cancer at the age of 54. Although she is no longer alive, her impact is still felt to this day. One of my favorite Anita Borg quotes comes from an interview I found from “Girl Geeks,” an extremely dated website from 1999.

“Being in technology is hard, but in the bigger picture, anything that is really worth doing in our lives — stick with it. See if you can find ways to combine your vocation and your avocation, your intellect and your passion!”

What a wise tech lady.

Image Courtesy of Technology for You

Sources

“About Anita Borg, Co-Founder of GHC.” AnitaB.org, anitab.org/about-us/about-anita-borg/.

“Anita Borg , Researcher, Xerox Park; Founder, IWT .” Women Who Inspire Us, Marjorie Lee Browne, www.girlgeeks.org/chat/borg.shtml.

“Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.” National Center for Women & Information Technology, www.ncwit.org/member/anita-borg-institute-women-and-technology.

“Anita Borg.” Wiki & Bio | Everipedia, Penguin Books Ltd, 26 Dec. 2016, everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/Anita_Borg/.

Hafner, Katie. “Anita Borg, 54, Trailblazer For Women in Computer Field.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Apr. 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/us/anita-borg-54-trailblazer-for-women-in-computer-field.html.

“Oral-History:Anita Borg.” Telephones – Engineering and Technology History Wiki, ethw.org/Oral-History:Anita_Borg.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

One of the most famous female computer scientists is Grace Hopper. Born in New York City in 1906, Hopper’s parents always encouraged her intellectual pursuits. Hopper was a very curious child and wanted to understand how things worked, and even took seven different clocks apart in the process!

Hopper received her B.A. in Mathematics and Physics from Vassar College in New York, and went on to get her masters in the same subjects from Yale University. In 1934 she received a PhD in mathematics from Yale University as well (“‘Amazing Grace”’ Murray Hopper”).

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Hopper wanted to join the United States navy. She was initially rejected because of her small size and age (35 years), however, due to her persistence she was able to join the U.S. Naval Women’s Reserve (“Grace Hopper”).

In the Navy, Hopper worked with the MARK I,“the first electromechanical computer in the United States” (“Biography of Grace Murray Hopper” ). This computer made calculations vital to the war effort, such as “computing rocket trajectories, creating range tables for new anti-aircraft guns, and calibrating mine sweepers.” Hopper also was the first person to use the term “bug” to describe unexpected computing behavior after a moth flew into the circuits of Mark I (“Grace Hopper”).

Image courtesy of Yale News

After World War II, Hopper turned her efforts to making computing accessible to the everyday person. Hopper developed the first compiler. Basically, a compiler translates a computer program into “machine code” that the computer can read. Originally, computer programming required the use of solely symbols, so it wasn’t usable to the average person. Hopper, however, pushed for the idea that computer programming languages should use English words instead of symbols. Her collogues told her it was impossible, but Hopper proved them wrong. Hopper and her team created “FLOW-MATIC,” “the first programming language to use word commands” (“Biography of Grace Hopper”).  Hopper also was the lead in developing COBOL, also known as “common business-oriented language,” to be used by businesses. In the 1970s, COBOL was the “most extensively used programming language in the world” (“Biography of Grace Hopper”).

Hopper’s greatest legacy is her ability to communicate her ideas and bring computing to the masses. In a 1980 interview, she claimed “I’ve come to feel that there is no use doing anything unless you can communicate.” Hopper had incredible foresight and saw the amazing impact computing could have on our everyday lives.

Image courtesy of Medium

Hopper retired from the U.S. navy in 1986 at the age of 79. On November 22, 2016, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Grace Hopper with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Every year since 1994, thousands of women from around the world come to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing to network, learn new skills, and celebrate the great achievements of this cool tech lady.

Sources

“Biography of Grace Murray Hopper.” Biography of Grace Murray Hopper | Office of the President, president.yale.edu/biography-grace-murray-hopper.

“‘Amazing Grace’ Murray Hopper.” Cyber Heroes of the Past: Valdemar Poulsen, wvegter.hivemind.net/abacus/CyberHeroes/Hopper.htm.

“Grace Hopper.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Grace-Hopper.

This week, we will now discuss a woman who’s greatness is finally being acknowledged by society for her extraordinary intellect: Ada Lovelace.

Image courtesy of the Smithsonian

The brilliant woman we now know as Ada Lovelace was born as the “Honourable August Ada Byron.” She was the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron, and her mother was Baroness Anne Isabella Milbanke. Lord Byron and Baroness Milbanke soon separated, however, as Byron was busy having an affair with his half sister (yikes). Lord Byron and the Baroness legally separated, and the Baroness went on to be a philanthropist, supporting the middle and working class and even fugitive slaves (“Ada Lovelace: Victorian Computing Visionary”).

Because of her mother’s wealth, Ada was extremely well educated despite the fact she could not formally attend school due to her gender. Her mother encouraged Ada’s study of math and science because she feared that if Ada turned to poetry Ada would start becoming mad like her father. Thankfully for her mother, Ada loved science and math, and designed her first flying machine that was eventually patented when she was a mere twelve years old (“Ada Lovelace: Victorian Computing Visionary”).

While Ada was married at age nineteen and soon had children, she did not let family life slow her down. She asked Augustus De Morgan, a prominent mathematician, to be her tutor. De Morgan studied symbolic logic, a subject all computer science students must cry overstudy today. He saw her brilliance and said that if she had been born male, she would have been “an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence” (Miller).

Lovelace’s first exposure to computing was from British inventor Charles Babbage. He had the idea of an “Analytical Engine” to solve math problems. Lovelace spent decades corresponding with Babbage about this machine. She added a “notes” section to Babbage’s paper about the machine, nearly tripling the document’s length. In this section, she outlines the first computer programs, which is why she is considered the world’s first computer programmer. Lovelace wrote about “the abstract principles of computation, how you could program [the machine], and big ideas like maybe it could compose music, maybe it could think” (Miller).

Image of Analytical Engine Courtesy of Science Museum

Clearly, Lovelace was way beyond her time. Unfortunately, however, Lovelace was very sickly throughout her life and eventually developed uterine cancer. She died when she was merely thirty-six years old, and was buried next to her father.  Her work was rediscovered by the computer scientist Alan Turing during World War II, and helped form understanding of computing today (“Ada Lovelace: Victorian Computing Visionary”).

Image courtesy of Elf Agency

Sources

Charman-Anderson, Suw. “Ada Lovelace: Victorian Computing Visionary.” Ada Lovelace Day, findingada.com/shop/a-passion-for-science-stories-of-discovery-and-invention/ada-lovelace-victorian-computing-visionary/.

Miller, Claire Cain. “Ada Lovelace, Mathematician Who Wrote the First Computer Program.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-ada-lovelace.html.

We all know about cool guys in STEM; you could hardly consider yourself educated if you didn’t know who Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, or Nikola Tesla are. Too often, however, we forget about the cool ladies that have impacted STEM. With this blog, I hope to educated my readers about interesting women in technology, past and present, and hopefully inspire my fellow ladies to study/keep studying STEM. Today I am going to start with the story of Katherine Johnson, the star of the recent box-office hit “Hidden Figures.”

Image accessed from Wikipedia

“Do your best and like what you do.” This is a motto that Katherine Johnson, a former mathematician at NASA, lives by. Growing up in West Virginia, she credits much of her success to her family’s encouragement. During her 33 year career at NASA, she worked on several key projects, such as Mercury and the Apollo missions. In addition to her technical accomplishments, Johnson exhibits strong character and humbleness, making her a true American hero. Johnson’s West Virginia origins, amazing accomplishments, and strong character make her an inspiration to me.

Katherine Johnson was born in White Sulfur Springs, WV and attended high school and college in West Virginia. She credits much of her success to her parents encouragement. Her father always told her “You are no better than anyone else, and no one is better than you.” Originally a farmer, her father moved into town so his four children could attend high school and college. He always emphasized the importance of education and made it his goal that all four of his children would receive college degrees. Katherine Johnson was a prodigy, and skipped several grades. She was always counting, and had a strong desire to learn (Hughes). As a West Virginia native, I feel particularly connected to Johnson’s childhood. I have visited many of the places she inhabited and grew up in a similar cultural environment. Much stigma surrounds this beautiful state, and Johnson’s story empowers me to overcome these stereotypes.

Although she received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and completed graduate work, Katherine Johnson was not able to fulfill her dream of being a research mathematician until she was thirty-five years old, when NASA (then known as NACA) opened an African American computing unit. Johnson was still motivated to pursue her goal, and accomplished many great things throughout her career. In one of her first projects, she analyzed the black box data of a propeller plane to figure out why it fell out of the sky. By plotting and analyzing the data, she helped engineers discover that larger planes can leave disturbances in the air for up to thirty minutes after they pass through, causing the propeller crash. Johnson also successfully calculated the desired launch site for Project Mercury, the United State’s first human space flight mission. Working backwards from the desired landing site and taking the earth’s rotation in account, she was able to plot the path for astronaut Alan Shepard’s (first American in space) flight path and determine the optimal launch site. Additionally, astronaut John Glenn insisted that she check the orbital calculations of the IBM 7090 computer and stated if she said the numbers were correct he was ready to launch. Glenn’s mission was successful and he became the first American to orbit Earth.

In many of her interviews, Johnson states that the accomplishments she is most proud of are the Apollo missions. She assisted with the calculations that synchronized the moon-orbiting Command and Service module with Apollo’s Lunar Lander. She worked on the Space Shuttle system and by the time she retired after 33 years at NASA she had authored or co authored 26 research reports. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the presidential medal of freedom, the highest honor a civilian can receive.

Image courtesy of Business Insider

Johnson, however, is extremely humble about her accomplishments, and at the time of her work was not very aware of all the barriers she was breaking. Instead of focusing on the challenges society gave her in her interviews, she gives advice for young people to accomplish their goals. In many of her interviews (WHROTV), she encourages young people to “do your best, and like what you do. If you don’t like what you do, you won’t do your best.” She always tried to find the root of questions, and to continue to answer questions throughout her life and career.

As a NASA intern for two summers, Johnson’s story is especially inspiring to me; she is a true American hero. Instead of using the obstacles she faced as excuses to not achieve, she overcame her obstacles. Instead of condemning society for the hardships it gave her, she maintains a positive outlook on life. She always worked hard, and instilled this value in her children. Patriotism, pride in one’s work, and humbleness are three things I highly value, and Johnson exemplifies all these virtues.

Katherine Johnson inspires me to not let my origins or gender limit what I may accomplish. Instead of letting the roadblocks in her path serve as excuses to not accomplish her goals, she effectively overcame her obstacles so she could get her work done. Her desires in life were simple, but impactful: research math, and surround herself with other intelligent people. Because of her humility and strong character, Katherine Johnson is my hero.

Image courtesy of Makers

If you want to learn more about Katherine Johnson, I highly recommend you watch this interview.

Bibliography

Hughes, June. “BIOGRAPHY: Katherine Johnson, Space Scientist.” The Heroine Collective, 8 Sept. 2015, www.theheroinecollective.com/katherine-johnson-space-scientist

Loff, Sarah. “Katherine Johnson Biography.” NASA, NASA, 22 Nov. 2016, www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography.

WHROTV. “What Matters – Katherine Johnson: NASA Pioneer and ‘Computer.’” YouTube, YouTube, 25 Feb. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8gJqKyIGhE.