Born in Glendale, California, the daughter of an electrical engineer and a homemaker, Dr. Shirley Thomas earned her B.A. in 1960 and her Ph.D. in Communications in 1967 from the University of Sussex. She was also awarded a diploma by the Russian Federation of Cosmonautics in 1995.

She died from cancer on July 21, 2005.

Active in Hollywood for a number of decades, Thomas conducted red carpet interviews at motion picture premiers and special event broadcasts from 1952 to 1956. She was also involved in the coverage of the New Year’s Day Rose Parade for CBS and later did broadcasts for Voice of America.

Thomas was also a prominent figure in the early days of the United States Space Program [1]. She authored fifteen books, including her eight volume series on astronauts Men of Space (published between 1960 and 1968). She also organized and chaired the Woman's Space Symposia from 1962-1973. In 1961 Thomas was the recipient of the Air Force Association's Airpower Arts and Letters Award and in 1991 she received the Aerospace Excellence Award from the California Museum Foundation. She was a Fellow in the British Interplanetary Society and acted as a consultant for the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Beginning in the 1970’s, Thomas organized the Theodore von Karman Stamp committee, succeeding in 1992 in getting a U.S. stamp issued in his honor [2]. She also founded and chaired the Aerospace Historical Society, an organization that for 22 years has presented the international Von Karman Wings award to outstanding and innovative contributors to the world of aerospace.

Thomas, an Associate Fellow and advocate for the national Society for Technical Communication (as well as the local Los Angeles Chapter, LASTC) taught “Technical and Fundamental Writing” in the Master of Professional Writing Program, University of Southern California for well over three decades [3].