GLADYS WEST- BEHIND THE CREATION OF THE GPS SYSTEM

     GLADYS WEST, ONE OF THE 'HIDDEN FIGURES' BEHIND THE CREATION OF THE GPS SYSTEM

You may not know Gladys West, but her calculations revolutionized navigation.
She is one of the mathematicians responsible for developing the global positioning system, better known as GPS.

Like many of the black women responsible for American achievements in math and science, West isn't exactly a household name. West was one of only four black employees at the Naval Proving Ground in 1956. She accepted a position at the Dahlgren, Virginia, facility doing calculations, with her early work focusing on satellites. West also programmed early compute d in the development of GPS.

Gladys Mae Brown,born 1931 in Dinwiddie, VA. As a girl growing up in Dinwiddie County south of Richmond, all Gladys Mae Brown knew was that she didn’t want to work in the fields, picking tobacco, corn and cotton, or in a nearby factory, beating tobacco leaves into pieces small enough for cigarettes and pipes, as her parents did.

“I realized I had to get an education to get out,” she said. When she learned that the valedictorian and salutatorian from her high school would earn a scholarship to Virginia State College (now University), she studied hard and graduated at the top of her class. She studied mathematics at Virginia State College. In 1956 she began to work at Naval Surface Warfare Centerwas Dahlgren Division, where she was the second black woman ever to be employed. She met her husband Ira West at the naval base a mathematician named Ira West.The two dated for 18 months before they married in 1957.
While he spent most of his career developing computer programs for ballistic missiles launched from submarines, her calculations eventually led to satellites.

Gladys West collect data from satellites, eventually leading to the development of the Global Positioning System. Her supervisor recommended her as project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project, the first satellite that could remotely sense oceans. In 1979, Gladys West was recommended for commendation. Mrs.West was a programmer in the Dahlgren Division for large-scale computers and a Project Manager for data processing systems used in the analysis of satellite data.

In 1986, Mrs West published "Data Processing System Specifications for the Geosat Satellite Radar Altimeter", a 60-page illustrated guide. The Naval Surface Weapons Center (NSWC) guide was published to explain how to increase the accuracy of the estimation of "geoid heights and vertical deflection", topics of satellite geodesy. This was achieved by processing the data created from the radio altimeter on the Geosat satellite which went into orbit on 12 March 1984. She worked at Dahlgren for 42 years.

Today, West lives in King George County, Virginia.  Her contributions to GPS were only uncovered when a member of West's sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, read a short biography West had submitted for an alumni function.  West is completing a PhD via a distance learning program with Virginia Tech.

                           Calculating the Future


                           Honoring Gladys West

     
  Information sources:
 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 www.becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/
 www.fredericksburg.com/features/gladys-west
 www.upworthy.com/you-may-not-know-gladys-west