✍🏾: @tiff.chey
91-year old #GladysWest played a major role in creating the GPS (global positioning system). The GPS is known for getting a person from one place to another and helping people figure out their surroundings and find their way.
Gladys West, born in 1930 as Gladys Mae Brown, was raised in a humble and rural upbringing in Sutherland, Virginia. Hailing from the HBCU known as #VirginiaStateUniversity, West earned a bachelor’s degree through a full-ride scholarship and earned her master’s degree by working as teacher for two years. Both degrees were math degrees.
West didn’t let anything get in her way, and 1956 became just the second Black woman ever to be hired at the then-Naval Proving Ground (now called the Naval Surface Warfare Center), where she worked as a mathematician. West was a programmer in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division for large-scale computers and a project manager for data-processing systems used in satellite data analysis.
Being one of a few Black women in this field was a bit unsettling for her, but West used that to fuel and drive her to succeed. “I started to think to myself that I’ll be a role model as the Black me … to be the best I can be, doing my work and getting recognition for my work,” she states.
As she became more acclimated with her work, West began analyzing data from satellites, putting together altimeter models of the Earth’s shape. She later became project manager of #Seasat, the first satellite that could remotely sense oceans using oceanographic data. Continuing her previous work, West helped create GEOSAT, a satellite programmed to develop computer models of Earth’s surface.
West then contributed her mathematical modeling and calculations that ultimately led to the implementation of GPS that we use in our everyday lives, proving that as a hard-working and intelligent Black woman, if she can do it, so can you! #BWLM💕
