Valerie Thomas

Chocolate brown distressed leather wit a complimenting gold embossed pattern. This is a cross body light weight shoulder bag with a embellished cow horn on the front flap. Under the flap is a zipped opening of a lined interior and and two pockets. The back of the back is just as creative as the front. Carry it and enjoy the difference in being different.

Valerie L. Thomas was born in February of 1943 in Maryland. She was fascinated with technology as a very young child. Around the age of eight, her curiosity about how things worked inspired her to borrow a book called, “The Boy’s First Book On Electronics," which she took home hoping that her father would help her take on some of the projects in it. After all, he liked to tinker with radios and television sets. But he wouldn’t help her.Thomas attended an all-girls high school that did not help her with hands on electronics either. 

This changed in college, when Thomas enrolled at Morgan State University as one of only two women in her class to major in physics.  She was an excellent student, and soon she had acquired the knowledge of mathematics that led her to a position as a mathematical/data analyst for NASA.

 In 1976, she saw something at a scientific exhibit that would lead her down a path of invention. She saw an illusion of a glowing light bulb that had been unscrewed and removed from a lamp. It had been created using a second bulb pointing downward in a socket beneath the top socket, employing a concave mirror to produce the illusion of the lit bulb. Unlike flat mirrors, which produce images that appear to be inside, or behind.

In 1980, she received a patent for her illusion transmitter, which uses a concave mirror on the transmitting end as well as on the receiving end to produce optical illusion images. Better known as the 3D images that we see on television and video games today. NASA uses the technology today, and scientists are currently working on ways to incorporate it into tools for surgeons to look inside the human body.

Thomas continued to work for NASA until her retirement in 1995, serving in such positions as Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN) project manager and most recently associate chief of the Space Science Data Operations Office.  She has received a number of NASA awards.