Little Known Black History Fact: Valerie Thomas

After graduating from an all-girls high school, Thomas entered Baltimore’s Morgan State University. As one of just two women majoring in physics, she excelled and her tenacity landed her a job at NASA in 1964 as a data analyst. She rose within the government agency quickly, overseeing the Landsat project in the 1970s. The Landsat satellite was the first to transfer images black to Earth, and Jones oversaw the development of that portion of the project.