Dr. Gladys Mae West
Back in the olden time – a long time ago – before there were cell phones – people had to pull out these large paper things called maps. And depending on the scale of the map, sometimes your father and mother had to stop their car and ask for directions.
All you young people out there are asking, “You didn’t have GPS ? Where were your cell phones?”
It was the great American mathematician, Gladys Mae West, known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of the satellite geodesy models that were eventually incorporated into the Global Positioning System – GPS.
Gladys West knew from a young age that she didn’t want to be a farmer. Born in 1930 in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, still had to help harvest crops on her family’s small farm. The hard work started before daybreak and lasted well into the blistering heat of the afternoon. She hated the dirt but, while she worked, she kept her mind on the building behind the trees at the end of the farm. It was her school, and even then, she knew it would be her ticket to freedom.
She said, “I was gonna get an education and I was going to get out of there. I wasn’t going to be stuck there all my life.”
What she could not have guessed was that this focus would shatter the perceptions of black women of the time and even lead to the invention of one of our most widely used inventions – GPS, the global positioning system.
The “red schoolhouse,” as West’s elementary school was known, was a three-mile walk away, through the woods and over streams. It was an all-black school taught in one room, but West quickly stood out.
Early on, West’s teachers encouraged her love of mathematics. As valedictorian of her high school class, she earned a full scholarship to Virginia State College [now Virginia State University]. In 1955, she received a master’s in mathematics.
It was hard enough working in a male-dominated world but being black made it even harder. It was her excellency that stood out above everyone else that she worked on NORC [Naval Ordinance Research Calculator] and became project manager for SEASAT which help made the accuracy of today’s GPS possible.
Gladys Mae West trailblazing life was made into a movie titled “Hidden Figures.”