VA HJR91

Celebrates the life of Gladys Mae West, a pioneering mathematician from Dinwiddie County who died on January 17, 2026, and whose work laid the foundation for the modern Global Positioning System (GPS)

West was the second Black woman ever hired at the Naval Proving Ground (now Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division), where she overcame significant discrimination to become project manager for Seasat, the first satellite designed for ocean remote sensing

Her mathematical programming on IBM computers created geoid models of Earth's shape that accounted for terrain features and gravitational forces, enabling the development of GPS technology used in navigation devices worldwide

West earned degrees from Virginia State University, a second master's from the University of Oklahoma, and a doctorate from Virginia Tech after retiring in 1998

She was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2018 and received the Prince Philip Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2021