![]() She was recommended for a commendation in 1979. ![]() West consistently put in extra hours, cutting her team's processing time in half. She became project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project, the first satellite that could remotely sense oceans. Subsequently, West began to analyze data from satellites, especially satellite altimeters such as GEOS 3, putting together models of the Earth's shape. In the early 1960s, she participated in an award-winning astronomical study that proved the regularity of Pluto’s motion relative to Neptune. Concurrently, West earned a second master's degree in public administration from the University of Oklahoma. West was a programmer in the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division for large-scale computers and a project manager for data-processing systems used in the analysis of satellite data. In 1956, West was hired to work at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, (now called the Naval Surface Warfare Center), where she was the second black woman ever hired and one of only four black employees. Career ĭata processing report for GeoSat by Gladys West Afterward, she briefly took another teaching position in Martinsville, Virginia. West then returned to VSU to complete her Master of Mathematics degree, graduating in 1955. After graduating, she taught math and science for two years in Waverly, Virginia. West graduated in 1952 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. She also became a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She was encouraged to major in science or mathematics because of their difficulty, and West ultimately chose to study mathematics, a subject mostly studied at her college by men. ![]() She was initially unsure what college major to pursue at VSU, as she had excelled in all her subjects in high school. West graduated as valedictorian in 1948, and received the much needed scholarship. #Dr. gladys west fullAt West's high school, the top two students of each graduating class received full scholarships to Virginia State College (now formally University), a historically black public university. West began babysitting to help save but, ultimately, her superior academic performance resulted in her securing two scholarships. Her parents tried to save but supporting an entire family on a sharecropper's wage did not leave much left for West's education. When West was on her way to graduate high school, the only obstacle keeping her from higher education was financial. West realized early on that she did not want to work in the tobacco fields or factories like the rest of her family, and decided that education would be her way out. Her father was a farmer who also worked for the railroad. She spent much of her childhood working on her family's small farm. Her family was an African-American farming family in a community of sharecroppers. ![]() West was born as Gladys Mae Brown in Sutherland, Virginia, in Dinwiddie County, a rural county south of Richmond. ![]()
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