Dr. Martha Jane Bergin Thomas spent her four-decade career at GTE Sylvania in Salem, Massachusetts, as a scientist and chemical engineer, earning her masters and doctorate degrees while working full time. While leading her research group at GTE Sylvania, Thomas made significant contributions to electric lighting, chemistry of phosphors, and the development of lightbulbs, setting up and running two pilot plants for the manufacture of new types of phosphors. Her work in phosphor chemistry to color balance fluorescent lighting to a more natural white light set an industry standard and made these lights much more commercially viable. It also opened the door for other “spin off” technologies including plant lights, black lights, light boxes to treat seasonal affective disorder, and even to the phosphor technology needed for the first commercially viable cathode-ray tube color television sets. Thomas is the sole inventor or co-inventor on 22 US patents and 13 foreign patents for improvements to phosphors and electric lighting, and published several dozen papers in technical journals. Dr. Thomas was honored by the Society of Women Engineers as the 1965 Achievement Award recipient.