Shirley Thomas

Shirley Thomas (1920 – July 21, 2005), also known as Shirley Thomas Perkins, was a radio/television actress/writer/producer, author, and professor in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. In 2010, The Aerospace Historical Society established the Shirley Thomas Academic Scholarship. It is "presented annually at the International von Kármán Wings Award banquet to a student in aerospace engineering or a related science that shows promise for continued future contributions to the field."

Personal life Thomas was born in Glendale, California, the daughter of an electrical engineer and a homemaker.

Career Thomas' career spanned a number of disciplines, most notably entertainment and aerospace.

Entertainment career 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. She also organized and chaired the Woman's Space Symposia from 1962 to 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).

Works The Thomas mss., Manuscripts Department, Lilly Library, Indiana University Men of Space: Profiles of the Leaders in Space Research, Development, and Exploration, vol. 1–8, (1960–1968). Theodore von Kármán Memorial Seminar, 1965: Proceedings of the Seminar ... Held in Los Angeles 12 May 1965 (1966). Computers: Their History, Present Applications, and Future (1965). Satellite Tracking Facilities (1963).