Biography
Gladys West was born in 1930 in Sutherland, Virginia. Her family was an African-American farming family. She spent much of her childhood working on her family's small farm. In addition to working on the farm, her mother worked in a tobacco factory and her father worked for the railroad. She knew from an early age that she did not want to spend her life picking tobacco and decided that education would be her way of pursuing a different life.
West graduated as valedictorian in 1948 and won a scholarship to Virginia State College, now Virginia State University (VSU), but had to pay for her own room and board and worked part-time as a nanny. She chose to study mathematics because it was a highly respected field, albeit chosen mainly by men, but she never minded and graduated in 1952. She taught mathematics and science for two years in Waverly, Virginia, then returned to the university to take a master's degree in mathematics, graduating in 1955. She then began another teaching career in Martinsville, Virginia.
In 1956, Gladys was hired as a mathematician at the US Naval Proving Ground, a weapons laboratory in Dahlgren, Virginia. She was the second African-American hired in the facility's history, and one of only four black employees on the entire base, and began working in the Dahlgren Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Centre, collecting satellite data.
It was there that she met Ira West, another mathematician employed at the base. They married in 1957 and had three children.
At Dahlgren, Gladys West was noted for her ability to solve complex equations by hand, which she later solved by programming. In the early 1960s, Gladys was involved in an award-winning paper demonstrating the regularity of Pluto's motion relative to Neptune. Years later, she became project manager of the Seasat project, the first satellite designed to monitor the oceans. For this task, West had to program an IBM 7030, a computer that was much faster than other computers of the time, which allowed her to make precise calculations. Seasat was the first project to demonstrate that satellites could be used to observe useful oceanographic data.
West's work on Seasat led to GEOSAT, a satellite programmed to create computer models of the Earth's surface, taking into account gravity, tides and other forces acting on the surface. So West and his team created a programme that could accurately calculate the orbits of satellites. These calculations allowed them to determine a geoid, a model of the exact shape of the Earth. It is this model, and subsequent updates, that allows the GPS system to make accurate calculations of any location on Earth. West's model eventually became the basis for the Global Positioning System (GPS).
In 1973, Gladys West received a master's degree in public administration from the University of Oklahoma.
In 1986, West published 'Data Processing System Specifications for the Geosat Satellite Radar Altimeter', a 60-page illustrated guide. The Naval Surface Weapons Centre (NSWC) guide was published to explain how to increase the accuracy of estimating 'geoid heights and vertical reflections' and satellite geodesy issues. This was achieved by processing data generated by a radio altimetry system on the Geosat satellite, launched on 12 March 1984.
Her life revolved around the base, and this was sometimes a bit lonely and isolated from the world around her, while outside there was an intense conflict over civil rights and segregation that she and her husband could not participate in for fear of losing their jobs. For West, this was a source of internal conflict: she supported the peaceful protests and their demands, but was not allowed to participate, so she decided to start a quieter, more quiet revolution that she could carry out inside the military base. She threw herself even more into her work, with the idea that by being the best she could begin to erase some of the stigma and prejudice against the black population. If they haven't worked with us, they don't know us, they don't know anything except that we work in the houses and the fields, so we have to teach them who we are. We try to do our part by setting an example as black people: be respectful, do your job and contribute while all this is going on'. And that's exactly what he did. He quickly rose through the ranks, earning the respect of his colleagues because his work was complex, involving the precise handling of huge databases. You had to be meticulous and develop the right processes and models to make the end result useful and appropriate. As a black woman in the civil rights era, Gladys West can be seen as a role model.
Gladys West worked at Dahlgren for 42 years, retiring in 1998. Her contributions to GPS were only discovered when a member of West's sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, read a short biography that West had submitted for an alumni event.
Although West received no special recognition or honours during her career, her contributions were widely acknowledged years later.
In 2018, Gladys West was inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame during a ceremony held in her honour at the Pentagon on 6 December 2018. This is one of the highest honours bestowed by the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC).
In recognition of her development of geodetic satellite models, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th Annual Webby Awards ceremony.
She was honoured for her distinguished career in mathematics and her significant contributions to modern technology.
West was born in Virginia, USA, in 1930. As a black woman, she experienced the effects of segregation and discrimination from an early age. Born into a family of farmers, she spent much of her childhood working on the family farm. However, she knew from a young age that she did not want to spend her life picking tobacco and decided that education would be her way of seeking a different life for herself.
West graduated as valedictorian in 1948 and was awarded a scholarship. She was a scholarship student at Virginia State University, which had a predominantly black student body. West chose to study mathematics, a subject taught predominantly by men at her university.
Born in Virginia in 1930, West, a black woman, suffered the effects of segregation and discrimination from an early age. Born into a farming family, she spent much of her childhood working on the family farm. However, she knew early on that she did not want to spend her life picking tobacco and decided that education would be her way of finding a different life for herself.
West graduated from high school in 1948 and was awarded a scholarship. This allowed her to enrol at Virginia Commonwealth University, a traditionally black university. West chose to study mathematics, a predominantly male subject at the university.
In 1956 Gladys West began working in the Dahlgren Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, where she was the second black woman to be hired in the Center's history. She started collecting satellite data, eventually leading to the development of the Global Positioning System. Her supervisor Ralph Neiman recommended her as project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project, the first satellite that could remotely detect oceans.
In 1986, she published "Data Processing System Specifications for the Geosat Satellite Radar Altimeter", a 60-page illustrated guide. Naval Surface Weapons Centre (NSWC) guidance was published to explain how to increase the accuracy of estimating "geoid heights and vertical reflection", key elements of satellite geodesy. This was achieved by processing data created from the radio altimeter on the Geosat satellite, which went into orbit on 12 March 1984. Her contributions to GPS were only discovered when a member of West's sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, read a short biography that West had submitted for an alumni function.
She was included into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame, one of the highest honours bestowed by the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC).
She has been acknowledged for her leading career in mathematics and her vital contributions to modern technology.
