Black History is Infinity ➰ Every time a phone reports a location, it relies on a system designed to eliminate uncertainty. That system did not emerge by accident. It was built with surgical precision. One of its principal architects was Dr. Gladys West. Decades before GPS became a consumer technology, Dr. West focused on a foundational problem of modern navigation—developing a mathematical model of the Earth precise enough to support consistent, error-resistant satellite positioning at global scale. Born in 1930 in rural Virginia and educated during segregation, Dr. West entered the U.S. Navy’s Naval Weapons Laboratory in 1956, at a time when advanced scientific research was tightly controlled, overwhelmingly white, and closely linked to Cold War defense priorities. She became one of a small number of Black professionals and one of the first Black women working in advanced computational research for national defense. Her work focused on satellite geodesy, the discipline responsible for modeling the Earth’s shape and gravitational dynamics with sufficient precision to support satellite-based navigation. Dr. West used early supercomputers to convert satellite measurements into consistent coordinate systems, where small errors would accumulate rapidly if left uncorrected. Those calculations became part of the World Geodetic System, the global reference model for positioning and navigation. Critical civilian and defense infrastructure now depends on the precision Dr. West’s work made possible. For years, that work remained largely invisible. Later, commentators compared Dr. West to the Black women at the center of the film Hidden Figures, using the story to illuminate the broader pattern of overlooked mathematicians whose calculations underpinned U.S. technological leadership. Dr. West finished a master’s degree and later earned a Ph.D. around age 70, all while working full time. Long before her name was widely known, her work had already become indispensable to how the modern world operates. Dr. West died in January 2026 at 95, widely recognized as one of the mathematicians whose work made global positioning possible. Dr. Gladys West did not shape a moment. She shaped an operating system for the modern world. 📍 Follow along as we continue honoring the builders, the breakthroughs, and what comes next.