After graduating high school, he attended Hampton University on a pre-medical track before being drafted into the U.S. Army in the Korean War, where he received a Purple Heart after being wounded there.

He completed bachelor's and master's coursework in physics at Temple University by 1957 but did not officially graduate because he returned to Bell Laboratories to continue his work on the microphone in November of that year.

West then joined the faculty of the Whiting School at Johns Hopkins University where he is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

[10] Nearly 90 percent of the microphones produced annually are based on the principles of the foil-electret and are used in everyday items such as telephones, camcorders, hearing aids, baby monitors, and audio recording devices among others.

[14] His research at Johns Hopkins also includes efforts to improve teleconferencing technology by transmitting stereophonic sound over the Internet and new transducers.

[7][18] Since 2015, West has served on the board of directors of the Ingenuity Project, a Baltimore non-profit that supports talented middle and high school students in science and math.

[19] West has long been known for being a mentor to students, and for being active in initiating and participating in programs aimed at encouraging more minorities and women to enter the fields of science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM).