NSTITUTE, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia State University has honored NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson with a bronze statue and scholarship dedication on the eve of her 100th birthday.
Six of Johnson’s grandchildren revealed the statue during a ceremony Saturday on the West Virginia State campus in Institute.
Today the University community gathered to dedicate a statue and scholarship in honor of our amazing alum Katherine Johnson. The statue will serve as a source of inspiration to current and future students of all that is possible through dedication, hard work and perseverance. pic.twitter.com/iFOqxnr1eH
— West Virginia State University (@WVStateU) August 25, 2018
The university also awarded a scholarship in Johnson’s name to two students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math.
Johnson turned 100 on Sunday. She graduated from the school in 1937 at age 18 with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and French.
Johnson and three other women crunched numbers at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. They worked in the pre-computer age, calculating rocket trajectories and orbits for the earliest American space flights.
Johnson was featured in the book and 2016 film “Hidden Figures.”
