In 1963, Philip M. Heyman joined RCA Laboratories as a Member of the Technical Staff, having received a Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering degree, cum laude, in the same year from the City College of New York. RCA sponsored his degrees of MSE, MA, and PhD during the period 1965-1970 from Princeton University. At RCA, Heyman's assignments included working with laser systems, ferroelectric thin film transistors, elimination of microphonics, and several enhancements to the electronics of television. He was also active in the development of improved manufacturing of color kinescopes and video discs. His work in the evolution of an erasable optical disc for high density, high data rate information storage led to successful experiments and awards for his work on cathodochromic video storage systems from RCA's outstanding achievement award committee in 1970, as well as from the Society for Information Display. In 1984, Heyman was promoted to Head of Advanced Technology Research, which went through various name changes as he led it through 1990s.