Gladys West and Sam Smith look over data from the Global Positioning System, which Gladys helped develop at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, VA in 1985. (Image credit: US Navy) West became valedictorian of her high school graduating class, then went to the historically Black Virginia State College (now Virginia State University) on a full scholarship. She earned a bachelor degree, then a masters degree, of science in mathematics. She also taught in Virginia’s schools, which were racially segregated at the time, Britannica noted.

A year after she graduated in 1955, the same year as when President Dwight Eisenhower banned racial discrimination in hiring, West began working at what was then called the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia. “There were three other Black professionals,” West told NPR. “West used complex algorithms to account for variations in gravitational, tidal and other forces that distort Earth’s shape,” DoD stated. “She programmed the IBM 7030 computer, also known as Stretch, to deliver increasingly refined calculations for an extremely accurate model of the Earth’s shape, optimized for what ultimately became the GPS orbit used by satellites.”