She Helped the World Find Its Way: The Legacy of Dr. Gladys West

Think about the last time you used GPS.

Maybe you were trying to find a restaurant, get to work, travel somewhere new, or simply figure out which turn you were supposed to make. For most of us, GPS—the Global Positioning System —is something we use without even thinking about it.

But have you ever wondered who helped make it possible?

Meet Dr. Gladys West, a brilliant Black mathematician whose groundbreaking work helped lay the foundation for the GPS technology millions of us rely on every day.

Born in 1930 in rural Virginia, West grew up on a farm during a time when opportunities for Black women, especially in mathematics and science, were extremely limited. She knew from an early age that education could open doors for her, so she worked hard in school, graduated as valedictorian of her high school class, and earned a scholarship to Virginia State College, now Virginia State University. She went on to earn both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics.

And that was only the beginning.

In 1956, West was hired as a mathematician at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia. She was only the second Black woman hired at the facility and one of only just a few Black employees working there at the time.

During her career, West worked with satellite data and complex mathematical calculations to create increasingly accurate models of the Earth’s shape. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, she programmed an early supercomputer to account for factors such as gravity and tides that affect the Earth’s shape. That incredibly precise work became an important foundation for the satellite technology that eventually developed into the GPS we know today.

In other words, every time your phone tells you, “Your destination is on the right,” there’s a little bit of Dr. West’s legacy behind it.

What makes her story even more remarkable is that her contributions weren’t widely recognized for much of her career. She worked at Dahlgren for 42 years, yet much of the public didn’t learn her name until decades later. Eventually, she received major recognition for her accomplishments, including induction into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2018.

Dr. West passed away on January 17, 2026, at the age of 95. While her passing gives us a reason to reflect on her life, her story deserves to be remembered for much more than the day she left us.

She was a mathematician. A programmer. A pioneer. A Black woman who entered spaces where very few people looked like her and produced work that would eventually help change the way the entire world navigates.

Her story is also an important reminder of why recognizing overlooked figures in history matters. Some of the technology we use every single day exists because of people whose names we may have never learned.

Dr. Gladys West is one of those names.

The next time your GPS gets you exactly where you need to go, maybe you’ll remember the brilliant woman whose calculations helped make that possible.