Celina Mikolajczak
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Celina J. Mikolajczak is an American mechanical engineer known for her work in industry on the development of improved electric batteries, especially for electric vehicles.[1] She is Chief Battery Technology Officer at Lyten, and a member of the board of advisors at Voltaiq.[2] She is also known for her discoveries as an amateur astronomer when she was a student.[3]
Mikolajczak is one of three children of Alojzy A. Mikolajczak, an aerospace engineer specializing in compressors and jet engines. After graduating in 1987 from Coronado High School, near San Diego, California,[3] she studied engineering and applied sciences as an undergraduate at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech),[1] originally intending to follow her father into aerospace engineering.[3]
She discovered several asteroids in 1988, including 5256 Farquhar,[4] and in 1989, when she was a sophomore at Caltech, she gained time on the Palomar Observatory to search for more. Instead, she became the first to spot supernova SN 1989N, in NGC 3646, a spiral galaxy in the Leo constellation.[3] She later cited Eleanor F. Helin, her faculty mentor on this project, as her most influential female role model at Caltech.[5]
After graduating from Caltech in 1991[5] and working in the oil industry, she went to Princeton University, where she earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering, focusing on the efficiency of internal combustion engines.[1]
