Gladys West was born in 1930 in Sutherland, Virginia, where she grew up in a farming family. She earned a bachelor's and a master's degree in mathematics from Virginia State College. Later in her career, she pursued further education and obtained a Ph.D. in Public Administration from Virginia Tech in 2018. She married Ira West, an engineer and fellow mathematician and had 3 children and now has 7 grandchildren.
In 1978, West was project manager for SEASAT, the first earth-orbiting satellite designed for remote sensing of the Earth’s oceans. With her and her team's work, she created the basis for the GPS we now use today. She also helped with the program for the Naval Ordinance Research Calculator(NORC), which created the motion for Pluto’s relativity to Neptune.
