Woman in STEM Spotlight: Gladys West

There are many “Hidden Figures” amongst us to this day, women who have made massive contributions that have forever changed history and society for the better. A prime example is Gladys West. If it weren’t for her, we would all be lost, literally! 

West is an incredible role model for girls and women everywhere. From a young age, West began to pave her own path by making the decision to focus more on her education over working on her family’s fields. She graduated as Valedictorian in high school and later received a Bachelor of Science (1952) and a master’s degree (1955) in mathematics. She also went on to pursue a master’s and PhD in Public Administration. 

By 1956, West began her career working as a mathematician at the U.S. Naval Proving Ground; this was a weapons laboratory located in Dahlgren, Virginia. At the time, she was only the fourth African American employee at the lab. 

Being one of the only African Americans in such a role at this time is no surprise, as both African Americans and women were largely underrepresented in STEM fields and not taken seriously. The epitome of this was seen by Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, three black women who were left out of history despite making massive contributions to NASA’s space mission that allowed for John Glenn to orbit the earth in 1962. Their story was later told in the 2016 movie “Hidden Figures.” Unfortunately, even to this day, women are still underrepresented in STEM; however, things are slowly changing. 

West continued to make history for African American women through her participation in a study that looked at and confirmed the “regularity of Pluto’s motion relative to Neptune” in the 1960s. Her space exploration and geospatial skills were further revealed in the 1970s when she became the project manager of Seasat, which involved a test surveillance satellite that provided data on varying oceanographic conditions; these conditions included winds, currents and more. Her time spent working on Seasat would later go down in history as one of her biggest accomplishments as she and her team eventually created a computer model of the planet’s surface; this model allowed scientists to accurately calculate the orbit of satellites around Earth. These calculations would later become fundamental to the GPS system…a system we all rely on today. 

West’s contributions to society as a whole are truly incredible – She broke several barriers for women and African Americans, showcasing anyone can do anything with hard work, dedication, confidence and persistence. Being different doesn’t matter, and she exemplified this in all her positions and accomplishments throughout her career. 

West will go down as one ‘Hidden Figure’ whose contributions forever changed our world. 

• feminism
• Gladys West
• GPS
• Hidden Figures
• Seasat
• STEM gender gap
• women empowerment
• women in STEM