- Jan 29
- 3 min read
Updated: May 22
Dr. Gladys West spent her life solving complex problems that would go on to shape the modern world. Most people don’t know her name, but have benefited from her work every day. Her recent passing has brought renewed attention to a legacy long overlooked.
A pioneering mathematician whose work helped shape modern Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, West was born the daughter of a sharecropper in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. A high school valedictorian who earned a scholarship to Virginia State University and earned her degrees in Mathematics, she taught mathematics and science in the public school system after graduation.
She went on to build a decades-long career at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, VA, where she was one of the few Black women in advanced technical roles. Her work included programming early computers and analyzing satellite data to help calculate the Earth’s shape with precision, which became essential to the development of GPS.
Using large-scale computers to build precise mathematical models of the Earth throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, in 2018, her work eventually earned her induction into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame.
West was also a mentor to the nonprofit STEM Xposure’s founder, Robyn Donaldson, an entrepreneur, educator, and architecture and structural design strategist. Donaldson wrote recently, “Dr. West, who recently passed peacefully from labor to reward, was a mathematician whose precision work in satellite geodesy laid the foundation for what we now know as the Global Positioning System (GPS). Today, GPS underpins nearly every major industry that drives wealth, security, and global mobility—from finance and logistics to aviation, construction, healthcare, defense, and telecommunications.”
Donaldson noted that Dr. West’s legacy is both historical and structural. “Every real estate development relying on precise land surveys, every supply chain optimized through route intelligence, every financial system synchronized by exact GPS timing, every emergency response deployed in minutes instead of hours: all of it traces back to foundational work done decades ago by a Black woman whose name most people are only now learning.”
Dr. West’s achievements during a time when Black women were rarely welcomed in advanced scientific environments have reshaped the world, and her career sets a standard resonating far beyond science and technology. “She did not seek recognition. She sought accuracy,” Donaldson wrote, adding that her impact continues to guide systems across the globe.
Donaldson has long been sharing and honoring Dr. West’s work and most recently has been working on the release of the publications Guiding the World: Honoring Dr. Gladys West and the Legacy of GPS, along with the leadership and innovation series Heading West, built on West’s principles— ”precision, perseverance, humility, and long-term vision” —for today’s “leaders and emerging power brokers.”
To learn more about Dr. Gladys West in her own words, read It Began with a Dream by Dr. Gladys West. The book offers a closer look at her life, the road that led her into advanced mathematics, and the legacy she left behind. For more information about Robyn Donaldson and her efforts to keep Dr. West’s story and impact visible, visit https://stemxposure.com.
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