Knowledge without frontiers Knowledge Without Frontiers | Page 72

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S 1950
PLANET HUNTER
Strojnik at the 23rd Slovenian Science Festival in Ljubljana.
Photo: Sanja Živković.
LOS ANGELES
A native of Ljubljana, Marija Strojnik (born 13
July 1950) started studying physics at the Uni-
PHOENIX
TEMPE
TUSCON
versity 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 micro-
scope. After finishing her master’s degree in
LEON
physics, optical sciences, and engineering, in
1979 she became the first woman to receive a
PhD in optical sciences from the University of
Arizona in Tucson.
After working at Rockwell International (lat-
er 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 centre. She is currently a
lecturer at the Optical Research Centre in Leon,
Mexico, where she focuses on discovering ex-
oplanets, 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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Optical physicist, infrared radi-
ation specialist, editor and profes-
sor.