Dr. Gladys B. West

Dinwiddie Training School, Dinwiddie (1948)

Dr. Gladys West grew up in Dinwiddie County, VA as the farmer’s daughter with a dream to significantly exceed beyond what she could see. The world has changed in ways that would have been virtually unimaginable when Dr. West walked to schools as the only means of transportation to children assigned to the schools she attended. After graduating from Dinwiddie Training School at the very top of her class, she enrolled in Virginia State College (now University) to study mathematics. At Virginia State College she was privileged to sit at the feet of renowned mathematician Dr. Reuben McDaniel.

The VIA Heritage Association honors this VIA Alumna who dedicated her career to pushing forward the frontier of mathematics via a strong orientation towards research in the mathematical sciences by length of career, teaching youth, frequency of publication, and impact of her work upon the world.

Mathematics has been a major component part that has suddenly made a number of previously unthinkable endeavors very possible. From modern electronics to computers, smartphones, the internet, brain imaging and more, everyday life in 2022 is vastly different from what it was when Dr. Gladys West and the vast majority of us were born.

One of those technologies that has revolutionized our society because of this VIA scholar is GPS: the Global Positioning System. From anywhere in the world, signals can be transmitted by a network of medium-earth orbit satellites to wherever your location is, pinpointing your position within twelve inches more than 95% of the time.