01/21/2026
Dr. Gladys West, a trailblazing mathematician whose work laid the foundation for modern GPS technology, has passed away at 95.
Born in 1930 in Virginia, West pursued higher education during the Jim Crow era fighting against discrimination earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from Virginia State College (now Virginia State University).
In 1956, she began a 42-year career at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, where her groundbreaking satellite-based models of the Earth’s shape became essential to GPS.
Though her contributions went unrecognized for decades, West received long-overdue honors by being inducted into the US Air Force Space and Missiles Pioneers Hall of Fame and honored as Female Alumna of the Year by the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Awards in 2018, cementing her legacy as a quiet architect of modern navigation.
Job well done, Dr. West!
