Katja Pretnar
Holds a master’s degree from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. She is employed as an engineer at the KUKA Robotics company in Augsburg, Germany. Her field of work is the development of software for robotic controllers.
As a gold matura leaving exam pupil from Jesenice Grammar School, she opted to study electronic engineering. In this she was guided by the thought that engineers have the most interesting, promising and challenge-filled career paths. Although she encountered reservations from those around her that technical studies were not an ideal choice for a girl, she never regretted her decision. During her studies she was inspired by robotics, which she was able to learn about from multiple angles – in collaboration with the Robotics Laboratory on projects in the field of rehabilitation from the research aspect, and on the other hand from the industry angle. She participated in the organisation of the event “Industrial Robotics Days”, which enabled the student organisers, with the cooperation of commercial companies, to pour their creative ideas into reality and create a presentation and popularisation of robotics.
After completing her studies, she wanted to put the knowledge she had acquired to practical use. She wrote her final thesis “avoiding collisions and the coordination of robots in an industrial cell with multiple robots” in cooperation with the German robot manufacturer KUKA. This opened the door for her to pursue further collaboration with the Augsburg-based company where she is currently employed. She works in the area of developing a robot operation system that enables buyers of robots to write their own robot applications. In this way she has the opportunity to contribute her share to the technological development of robotics.