Schoolchildren all over the world are instructed that they’ve the potential to be nice, usually with the cheery phrase: “The sky’s the restrict!”
Gladys West took these phrases actually.
Whereas working for 4 a long time as a mathematician and pc programmer on the U.S. Naval Proving Floor (now the Naval Surface Warfare Center) in Dahlgren, Va., she ready the best way for a satellite tv for pc constellation within the sky that turned an indispensable a part of trendy life: the International Positioning System, or GPS.
The second Black lady to ever work on the proving floor, West led a gaggle of analysts who used satellite tv for pc sensor knowledge to calculate the form of the Earth and the orbital routes round it. Her meticulous calculations and programming work established the flight paths now utilized by GPS satellites, setting the stage for navigation and positioning programs on which the world has come to rely.
For many years, West’s contributions went unacknowledged. However she has begun receiving overdue recognition. In 2018 she was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame. In 2021 the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences offered her its Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, whereas the U.Okay. Royal Academy of Engineering gave her the Prince Philip Medal, the group’s highest particular person honor.
West was offered the 2024 IEEE President’s Award for “mathematical modeling and improvement of satellite tv for pc geodesy fashions that performed a pivotal position within the improvement of the International Positioning System.” The award is sponsored by IEEE.
How the “hidden determine” overcame boundaries
West’s path to changing into a know-how skilled and an IEEE honoree was an unlikely one. Born in 1930 in Sutherland, Va., she grew up engaged on her household’s farm. To complement the household’s earnings, her mom labored at a tobacco manufacturing unit and her father was employed by a railroad firm.
Bodily toil within the scorching solar from dawn till sunset with paltry monetary returns, West says, made her decided to do one thing apart from farming.
On daily basis when she ventured into the fields to sow or harvest crops together with her household, her ideas have been on the little pink schoolhouse past the sting of the farm. She remembers gladly making the practically 5-kilometer trek from her home, by way of the woods and over streams, to succeed in the one-room college.
She knew that postsecondary training was her ticket out of farm life, so all through her college years she made positive she was a standout pupil and a mannequin of focus and perseverance.
Her mother and father couldn’t afford to pay for her school training, however as valedictorian of her highschool class, she earned a full-tuition scholarship from the state of Virginia. Cash she earned as a babysitter paid for her room and board.
West determined to pursue a level in arithmetic at Virginia State School (now Virginia State University), a traditionally Black college in Petersburg.
On the time, the sphere was dominated by males. She earned a bachelor’s diploma within the topic in 1952 and have become a schoolteacher in Waverly, Va. After two years within the classroom, she returned to Virginia State to pursue a grasp’s diploma in arithmetic, which she earned in 1955.
Gladys West at her desk, meticulously crunching numbers manually within the period earlier than computer systems took over such duties.Gladys West
Setting the groundwork for GPS
West started her profession on the Naval Proving Floor in early 1956. She was employed as a mathematician, becoming a member of a cadre of employees who used linear algebra, calculus, and different strategies to manually clear up advanced issues reminiscent of differential equations. Their mathematical wizardry was used to deal with trajectory evaluation for ships and plane in addition to different functions.
She was one in every of 4 Black workers on the facility, she says, including that her willpower to show the aptitude of Black professionals drove her to excel.
As computer systems have been launched into the Navy’s operations within the Nineteen Sixties, West turned proficient in Fortran IV. The programming language enabled her to make use of the IBM 7030—the world’s quickest supercomputer on the time—to course of knowledge at an unprecedented price.
Due to her experience in arithmetic and pc science, she was appointed director of initiatives that extracted beneficial insights from satellite tv for pc knowledge gathered throughout NASA missions. West and her colleagues used the information to create ever extra correct fashions of the geoid—the form of the Earth—factoring in gravitational fields and the planet’s rotation.
One such mission was Seasat, which lasted from June to October 1978. Seasat was launched into orbit to check oceanographic sensors and acquire a greater understanding of Earth’s seas utilizing the primary space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system, which enabled the primary distant sensing of the Earth’s oceans.
SAR can purchase high-resolution pictures at evening and may penetrate by way of clouds and rain. Seasat captured many beneficial 2D and 3D pictures earlier than a malfunction prompted the satellite tv for pc to be taken down.
Sufficient knowledge was collected from Seasat for West’s workforce to refine current geodetic fashions to raised account for gravity and magnetic forces. The fashions have been essential for exactly mapping the Earth’s topography, figuring out the orbital routes that may later be utilized by GPS satellites, in addition to documenting the spatial relationships that now let GPS decide precisely the place a receiver is.
In 1986 she printed the “Data Processing System Specifications for the GEOSAT Satellite Radar Altimeter” technical report. It contained new calculations that might make her geodetic fashions extra correct. The calculations have been made doable by knowledge from the radio altimeter on the GEOSAT, a Navy satellite tv for pc that went into orbit in March 1985.
West’s profession at Dahlgren lasted 42 years. By the point she retired in 1998, all 24 satellites within the GPS constellation had been launched to assist the world hold time and deal with navigation. However her position was largely unknown.
A mannequin of perseverance
Neither an early bout of imposter syndrome nor the racial tensions that have been an on a regular basis ingredient of her work life throughout the peak of the Civil Rights Movement have been capable of knock her off beam, West says.
Within the early Nineteen Seventies, she determined that her profession development was not continuing as easily as she thought it ought to, so she determined to go to graduate college half time for an additional diploma. She thought-about pursuing a doctorate in arithmetic however realized, “I already had all of the technical credentials I might ever want for my work for the Navy.” As a substitute, to solidify her abilities as a supervisor, she earned a grasp’s diploma in 1973 in public administration from the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
After retiring from the Navy, she earned a doctorate in public administration in 2000 from Virginia Tech. Though she was recovering from a stroke on the time that affected her bodily skills, she nonetheless had the identical drive to pursue an training that had as soon as stored her targeted on slightly pink schoolhouse.
A formidable legacy
West’s contributions have had a long-lasting affect on the fields of arithmetic, geodesy, and pc science. Her pioneering efforts in a predominantly male and racially segregated atmosphere set a precedent for future generations of feminine and minority scientists.
West says her life and profession are testaments to the ability of perseverance, talent, and dedication—or “stick-to-it-iveness,” to make use of her parlance. Her story continues to encourage individuals who try to push boundaries. She has proven that the sky is certainly not the restrict however just the start.
