Getting There: STEM Trailblazers Dr. Gladys and Ira West

The Fredericksburg Area Museum is excited to announce an upcoming exhibit, Getting There: STEM Trailblazers Dr. Gladys and Ira West. Loaned by the Dahlgren Heritage Museum, this exhibit features the story of pioneering mathematician Gladys West, who used the power of education to come from a one room segregated schoolhouse and a life of labor to induction into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame as a PhD. Among other contributions to today’s technology, Dr. West developed the mathematics that led to the creation of the GPS. Learn about Dr. West, and her husband Ira through the story of their work as some of the first African American mathematicians employed by Dahlgren Naval Base during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s.

 

This exhibit opens September 22, 2023, and runs through April of 2024.

 

For more information, please contact the FAM at (540) 371-3037.