“Hidden Figure” Dr. Gladys Brown West

When programming your navigation system for a trip (land, sea, or air), thank Dr. Gladys Mae Brown West for her development of the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Gladys Mae Brown was born in rural Sutherland Virginia, where her parents owned a small farm in an area popula-ted mostly by sharecroppers. Growing up, when not in school, she spent much of her time helping to harvest crops on the family farm, an occupation she knew many of her peers would continue into adulthood. In her community the only clear options for a young Black girl’s future were continuing to farm or working at a tobacco-processing plant.

Breaking Ground at an HBCU

But at school Gladys’s exceptional talent for learning offered another path. As valedictorian of her high school graduating class, Gladys received a full scholarship to Virginia State College (now Virginia State University), the historically Black college where she earned a degree in mathematics in 1952. Gladys later returned for a master’s degree in mathematics, graduating in 1955, after spending time teaching math in racially segregated Virginia schools and applying for a series of jobs in Virginia’s segregated state government that were instead awarded to white men.

In 1956, Gladys Brown was hired as the second Black woman to work at the Naval Proving Ground, (now the Naval Surface Warfare Center) in Dahlgren, Virginia. There she met Ira West, one of only two Black men working at the facility, and married him in 1957. While working as a computer programmer there and as a project manager for processing systems for satellite data analysis, Gladys West earned a second masters degree, in Public Administration, from the University of Oklahoma.

Accomplishments and Achievements

At Dahlgren, Gladys West was admired for her ability to solve complex mathematical equations by hand. She eventually transitioned from solving those equations herself to programming computers to do it for her.

One of her first major projects was work on the Naval Ordinance Research Calculator (NORC), an award-winning program she designed. It required 100 hours of computer calculations, which often had to be double-checked for errors by hand, which she did, to determine the movements of Pluto in relation to Neptune.

In 1978 Dr. Gladys West was named project manager of Seasat, an experimental US ocean surveillance satellite designed to provide data on a wide array of oceanographic conditions and features, including wave height, water temperature, currents, winds, icebergs, and coastal characteristics. It was the first project to demonstrate that satellites could be used to observe useful oceanographic data.

Out of West’s work on Seasat came GEOSAT, a satellite programmed to create computer models of Earth’s surface. By teaching a computer to account for gravity, tides, and other forces that act on the planet’s surface, West and her team created a program that could precisely calculate the orbits of satellites. These calculations made it possible to determine a model for the exact shape of Earth, called a geoid. It is this model, and later updates, that allows the GPS system to make accurate calculations of any place on Earth.

Dr. Gladys West’s vital contributions to GPS technology were recognized when a member of her sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha read a short biography West had submitted for an alumni function.

Legacy and Honors

West was inducted into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame in 2018, one of the highest honors bestowed by Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), which hailed her as one of “the ‘Hidden Figures’ part of the team who did computing for the US military in the era before electronic systems.”

Capt. Godfrey Weekes, commanding officer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, described the role played by West in the development of Global Positioning System: “She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy, and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data … her work will impact the world for decades to come.”

West said, “When you’re working every day, you’re not thinking, ‘What impact is this going to have on the world?’ You’re thinking, ‘I’ve got to get this right.’”

As an alumna of Virginia State University, West won the award for “Female Alumna of the Year” at the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Awards in 2018. In 2021, she was awarded the Prince Philip Medal by the United Kingdom’s Royal Academy of Engineering, their highest individual honor.

During her career, Dr. West encountered many hardships because of racism against African Americans. A prime example was the lack of recognition she received while working, and not being granted projects that included travel and exposure.

Let us all remember, and celebrate, and thank Dr. Gladys West during Black History Month!