MARIJA
STROJNIK
1950
PLANET HUNTER
Strojnik participating at the 23rd Slovenian Science Festival in Ljubljana . Photo : Sanja Živković .
Optical physicist , infrared radiation specialist , editor and professor .
A native of Ljubljana , Marija Strojnik was born on 13 July 1950 . She started studying physics at the University of Ljubljana and completed her studies at Arizona State University in Tempe , AZ . While there , she collaborated with her father Aleš Strojnik , who was building an electron microscope . She took a master ’ s degree in physics , optical sciences , and engineering , and in 1979 became the first woman to receive a PhD in optical sciences from the University of Arizona in Tucson .
After working at Rockwell International ( later sold to Boeing ) in Los Angeles and then at Honeywell in Phoenix , she took a position at the California Institute of Technology , which is also an official NASA center . She is currently a lecturer at the Optical Research Center in Leon , Mexico , focusing on discovering exoplanets , i . e . planets outside our Solar System . She has designed a special instrument for the optical detection of planets next to a bright star .
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