[2][3] In 1901 she studied at Birmingham having obtained a Priestley Scholarship, after which she returned to Cambridge to teach chemistry at Girton College.
"While Thomas is remembered for her work in education, she did publish with Humphrey Owen Jones on the stereochemistry of optically active nitrogen compounds.
[4] However, pressures of teaching meant that her efforts shifted to education,[1] although she did carry out some development work on anti-gas respirators during World War I.
[5] In 1904, Thomas, along with eighteen other British women chemists, signed a petition setting out their reasons to the Chemical Society why they should be afforded Fellowship status like their male counterparts.
Thomas also found a means to make a personal protest, by way of not paying education rates levied on house-holders.