Gladys West: The Mathematician Behind GPS

Gladys Mae Brown West was born on October 27, 1930, in Sutherland, Virginia, where she grew up on a small farm and excelled in school. She earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Virginia State College in 1952 and a master’s degree soon after; she later completed a second master’s in public administration and, after retiring, a Ph.D. in public administration in 2000.

In 1956 West was hired at the U.S. Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, where she became one of the few Black employees and where she programmed mainframe computers to process satellite observations. Over the 1960s and 1970s she worked on planetary motion studies and then on satellite altimeter data, leading efforts like Seasat to derive ocean and geodetic measurements that fed into a more accurate geoid model.

Her team used algorithms that accounted for gravity, tides, and other perturbing forces, producing a geopotential model that could give precise satellite orbit calculations; those calculations were essential when the Global Positioning System was developed and deployed. In 1986 West published a technical report on Geosat altimeter processing that codified methods for improving geoid heights and vertical deflection, work that has been cited in later geodetic and altimetry research.

Although West’s role was not widely known for many years, she received honors late in life, including induction into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2018 and recognition by the Virginia General Assembly. She retired from the naval laboratory in 1998, continued study, and recovered from health setbacks to complete a doctorate; she died on January 17, 2026, in Alexandria, Virginia, at age 95.