Marija Strojnik Scholl
Marija Strojnik Scholl (born 13 July 1950 in Ljubljana) is a Slovene astrophysicist currently working as a distinguished professor at the Optical Research Center in León, Mexico. She is best known for developing an autonomous system for optical navigation based on CCD technology which is currently used in nearly all commercial aircraft and numerous spacecraft, including in the NASA Cassini mission. Early life and education. Strojnik Scholl developed an interest in optics at an early age, when accompanying her father, Aleš Strojnik to work. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the physics program at the  University of Ljubljana; however, her parents emigrated to the United States soon after that, and she followed them to Tempe, Arizona. There, Strojnik Scholl finished her undergraduate studies at the Arizona State University in only two years, as the only woman in her class. Sshe continued her postgraduate studies at the same university and received a M.S. degree in Physics in 1974. She finished a M.S. in Optical Sciences in 1977 at the University of Arizone and a M.S. in Engineering (Engineering Executive Program) in 1981 at the University of California, Los Angeles. She finished her doctorate degree in Optical  Sciences in 1979 at the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, as the first woman in the history of the optics department. Career. Specializing in infrared physics, she became manager of the optics department at the Rockwell International corporation, then a senior engineer at Honeywell and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). At the JPL, she designed, developed and implemented a novel system for autonomous optical navigation using star charts and an intelligent CCD-based camera. This system is the basis for autonomous navigation in all commercial aircraft, in satellites forming the GPS network, and others. The  autonomous navigation system was used to facilitate navigation of the NASA's "Cassini–Huygens" probe to Saturn in 2005. Strojnik Scholl received several NASA Certificates for creative development and technological innovations Based on her merits, Strojnik Scholl became a distinguished professor at the Optical Research Center ("Centro de Investigaciones en Optica") in Mexico where she has been working on a method for direct detection of exoplanets using interferometry. She is a Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA) and SPIE, and was the editor of the journal "Applied Optics, Infrared" for two terms in addition to the Infrared Physics and Technology  and The Scientific World Journal. Personal life. Marija Strojnik Scholl has three daughters which she raised herself after her husband passed away because of lateral sclerosis. Two of them became scientists themselves. In 2008, Strojnik Scholl was diagnosed with cancer which she has beaten several times with therapy.