Contributions of Black Mathematicians to the Field

Gladys Mae Brown, a remarkable mathematician often hailed as a "hidden figure," defied the limited opportunities available to young Black girls in rural Virginia. Despite the prevailing norms pushing towards farming or tobacco processing, her academic excellence led her to Virginia State College, now Virginia State University, where she obtained a mathematics degree in 1952. Subsequently, she pursued a master's degree while navigating racial segregation and discrimination in the job market. In 1956, Gladys joined the U.S. Naval Proving Ground as a mathematician, becoming only the fourth Black employee. Renowned for her prowess in solving intricate mathematical problems manually, she later transitioned to computer programming. Her contributions were instrumental in projects like the Naval Ordinance Research Calculator and the groundbreaking Seasat satellite initiative, a pioneer in ocean surveillance technology. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, West programmed an IBM 7030 Stretch computer to deliver increasingly precise calculations to model the shape of the Earth – an ellipsoid with irregularities, known as the geoid. Generating an extremely accurate model required her to employ complex algorithms to account for variations in gravitational, tidal, and other forces that distort Earth's shape. West's team once discovered an error during the study and out of all of the brilliant minds, she was the only one that was able to solve it. West's data ultimately became the basis for the Global Positioning System (GPS). Leading the Seasat project in 1978, Gladys West demonstrated the potential of satellites in gathering crucial oceanographic data. Her work paved the way for GEOSAT, a revolutionary satellite program enabling precise calculations of Earth's surface features. These innovations, including the development of a geoid model, significantly contributed to the accuracy of the GPS system we rely on today. Throughout her illustrious career, Gladys West continued her academic pursuits, earning multiple master's degrees and a Ph.D. even after retirement. Her memoir, "It Began with A Dream," co-authored with M. H. Jackson, not only chronicles her extraordinary journey but also stands as an inspiration for women and girls aspiring to break barriers and excel in STEM fields. Dr. West is the only black woman to be inducted into the Air Force Missile and Space Pioneers Hall of Fame and was recently inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame.

When John Glenn refused to board Friendship 7 in 1962, he had one condition: ‘Get the girl—Katherine Johnson—to check the numbers.’ That girl was Katherine Johnson, a brilliant Black mathematician working at NASA during the intense Space Race. NASA had started using new electronic computers for the complex trajectory calculations needed to send humans into space. But Glenn, preparing to be the first American to orbit Earth, wasn't ready to fully trust the machines for his life. He insisted Johnson personally verify the computer's output. Johnson worked in a segregated unit known then as the West Area Computing Unit, staffed by Black women who served as 'human computers.' Her calculations had already been crucial for Alan Shepard’s first American suborbital flight in 1961. For Glenn's pivotal 1962 flight, her confirmation of the orbital equations gave the go-ahead for one of America's great space milestones. 🚀 Johnson's skills remained essential even as technology advanced. For the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, her calculations helped synchronize the lunar lander with the command module orbiting the Moon. Her work also proved vital during the Apollo 13 emergency, where her development of backup procedures helped the crew navigate safely back to Earth. Throughout her career at NASA, which lasted until 1986, she co-authored 26 scientific papers and contributed to the Space Shuttle program. 👩💻 In 2015, Katherine Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, recognizing her pioneering work and contributions to the nation's space exploration. Her dedication and mathematical genius were foundational to America's achievements in space. Sources: NASA archives, Presidential Medal of Freedom citations#KatherineJohnson #NASA #WomenInSTEM

Dr. Gladys Mae West (Brown) (born October 27, 1930) is an African American mathematician known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth and her work on the development of the satellite geodesy models that were eventually incorporated into GPS. She was inducted into the US Air Force Hall of Fame in 2018. She received her BS and MS from Virginia State University, MA from the University of Oklahoma, and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech in 2018. She was hired to work at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, where she was the second African American woman ever hired and one of only four African American employees. She 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 the early 1960s, she participated in an award-winning astronomical study that proved the regularity of Pluto’s motion relative to Neptune. She began to analyze data from satellites, putting together altimeter models of the Earth's shape. She became the project manager for the Seasat radar altimetry project, the first satellite that could remotely sense oceans. She put in extra hours, cutting her team’s processing time in half. She was recommended for a commendation in 1979. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha

Gladys West (born October 27, 1930, Sutherland, Virginia) is an American mathematician known for her work contributing to the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Gladys Mae Brown was born in rural Virginia, where her parents owned a small farm in an area populated mostly by sharecroppers. Growing up, when not in school, she spent much of her time helping to harvest crops on the family farm, an occupation she knew many of her peers would continue into adulthood. In her community the only clear options for a young Black girl’s future were continuing to farm or working at a tobacco-processing plant. In 1956 Gladys was hired as a mathematician by the U.S. Naval Proving Ground, a weapons laboratory in Dahlgren, Virginia, as only their fourth Black employee. There she met Ira V. West, another Black mathematician on the base; the couple married in 1957 and had three children. At Dahlgren, Gladys West was admired for her ability to solve complex mathematical equations by hand. She eventually transitioned from solving those equations herself to programming computers to do it for her. One of her first major projects was work on the Naval Ordinance Research Calculator (NORC), an award-winning program designed (via 100 hours of computer calculations, which often had to be double-checked for errors by hand) to determine the movements of Pluto in relation to Neptune. Like NASA mathematicians Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, West is often called one of history’s “hidden figures”: individuals, often Black women, whose insightful contributions to science went unrecognized in their time because of their race or gender. In 2018 West was formally recognized for her contribution to the development of GPS by the Virginia General Assembly. That same year she was also inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame and named one of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s 100 Women of 2018, a list designed to honour inspiring women worldwide.