Emily Willbanks

West met Eugene Willbanks at Los Alamos. At the time, she was working in the weapons department while Eugene worked in the computing division. They married in 1959, but had no children. Her husband died from a brain tumour in 1994. Emily Willbanks died on February 18, 2007 in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

West began working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1954. While at Los Alamos National Laboratory her initial work involved hand calculations. This evolved into working with the MANIAC I computer for weapons applications. She continued working in the weapons division until the early seventies. She worked under Roger Lazarus in the Computer Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory until she retired in 1990. Her work in the computing department involved the design and maintenance of computer storage, including a project to design a clustered file system. Her work for this project included software development and computerizing weapons data. She adapted the same software in an English weather center database, the Meteorological Archival and Retrieval System.

West worked as an engineering aide in mathematics at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Co from 1952 to 1954. Her work there involved hand calculations of heat flow and fluid dynamics for a feasibility study on nuclear-powered aircraft, in partnership with General Electric.

Emily Willbanks (born Emily West, November 25, 1930 – February 18, 2007) was a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1954–1990. She made advancements in the fields of mathematics, computing, and data systems. She used her background in physics and mathematics to contribute to defense weapons and high-performance storage systems at Los Alamos. She was instrumental in the advancement of a major weather centre in England, was involved in many classified projects for the government, and revolutionized the mass data storage system.

Emily West was born on November 25, 1930 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Her father, Frank M. West, was the superintendent for a private beach estate, and her mother was a homemaker. She was their only child. West attended the public high school. From a young age she expressed great interest in mathematics and science. West studied science at Duke University beginning in 1948. After her first year she received a scholarship for academic excellence and was the sole female physics major in her graduating class. She earned a B.S. in math and physics in 1952. She continued her education at the University of New Mexico where she completed a master's degree in physics in 1957.