West's work on modeling the Earth's shape assisted with the development of GPS, today used by an estimated 4 billion people.

A self-described "little farm girl" in the Jim Crow Era, Gladys West's complex and pioneering work for the U.S. Navy helped ...

Dr. Gladys West, mathematician and pioneer behind GPS technology, has died at 95, leaving a lasting legacy in science and navigation.

Dr. Gladys West, the pioneering mathematician whose algorithms and data-mapping created the functions and laid the groundwork ...

RICHMOND, Va. — Gladys West, a mathematician who was part of the team that developed the global positioning system -- more ...

Pioneering mathematician Dr. Gladys West has passed away at the age of 95. Her name may not be familiar to you, but her contributions certainly are; West's work laid the foundation for the global ...

Groundbreaking Black mathematician Gladys West, who helped develop the algorithms behind GPS, died Jan. 17 at age 95. NPR's Scott Simon talks to Marvin Jackson, who co-wrote West's memoir.

As a Navy mathematician in the 1950s and beyond, she played an unheralded but foundational role in making possible the global satellite-based mapping system.

She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

Gladys West, who has died aged 95, was the daughter of poor black farmers who in the 1950s and 1960s was instrumental in ...