Speaker 1: Well now you have it. It's time for the Way
Speaker 1: Black History Fact. And today's Way Black History Factor is
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Speaker 2: The Way Black History Fact from Britannica dot com. Now
Speaker 2: some of us are old enough to remember these very
Speaker 2: very large books from Britannica, the Encyclopedia Britannica, a selection
Speaker 2: of hardbound you know, books that we would use as children.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Britannica for this story and for the
Speaker 2: books that my mom still has at my house to
Speaker 2: this day, even with us having Google. So from Britannica
Speaker 2: dot com. Valerie Thomas born February eighth, nineteen forty three
Speaker 2: in Baltimore, Maryland, American is scientists and inventor who, while
Speaker 2: working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration we referred
Speaker 2: to as NASA, invented a way to transmit three dimensional
Speaker 2: images or holograms that appeared to be real. In addition,
Speaker 2: she helped to develop processing software to convert scientific data
Speaker 2: captured by satellites into information that scientists could use. From
Speaker 2: early age, Thomas was interested in electronics, mathematics, and physics,
Speaker 2: despite the fact that girls were not encouraged to study
Speaker 2: these subjects and in some cases not allowed to study
Speaker 2: those subjects. Moreover, because she was African American in a
Speaker 2: racially segregated society, she had fewer educational options and opportunities
Speaker 2: than other students, namely white students. Nevertheless, she was academically
Speaker 2: successful in high school and attended Morgan State College now
Speaker 2: Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland in HBCU in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty four, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics.
Speaker 2: Thomas subsequently began working as a data analyst at NASA.
Speaker 2: One of her early roles was analyzing data from the
Speaker 2: Orbiting Geo Geophysical Observatory I'm Sorry, a series of scientific
Speaker 2: satellites that the United States launched in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventies, Thomas helped develop the image processing system
Speaker 2: for NASA's Landsat, a program involving unscrewed scientific satellites designed
Speaker 2: to collect information about Earth's natural resources. The satellites carried
Speaker 2: various types of cameras, including those with infrared sensors. Thomas
Speaker 2: served as a leader of the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment,
Speaker 2: a program that research and developed ways to monitor wheat
Speaker 2: yields around the world using lansat images. In nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: Thomas became intrigued by three D illusions after viewing a
Speaker 2: demonstration in which a light bulb seemed to stay lit
Speaker 2: even after being removed from a lamp. The illusion was
Speaker 2: created by means of a concave mirror, reflecting a second
Speaker 2: light bulb and experimenting, and she soon invented illusion transmitter,
Speaker 2: for which she received a patent in nineteen eighty. The
Speaker 2: transmission system uses a video recorder to take pictures of
Speaker 2: a floating image in front of a concave mirror. The
Speaker 2: video image is set to set to a second image,
Speaker 2: which projects the image in front of a second concave mirror.
Speaker 2: The process creates the optical illusion of a three D image.
Speaker 2: NASA subsequently used the technology in some of its satellites
Speaker 2: and applications. In two thousand and four, Thomas received a
Speaker 2: doctor written Educational Leadership from the University of Delaware. Throughout
Speaker 2: her life, she encouraged young people especially African Americans and girls,
Speaker 2: to pursue science education. She was an active STEM organization
Speaker 2: organizer I'm Sorry, and involved herself with organizations such as
Speaker 2: the Women in Science and Engineering Shades of Blue, which
Speaker 2: focuses on aviation aerospace, and also worked as a substitute teacher.
Speaker 2: Is still alive at eighty one years old. I think
Speaker 2: we should reach out to her.