Stacey Knobler, M.D.
Dr. Knobler has recently retired after 27 years as a physician, with 14 years working in Reno, Nevada. Her specialty was pediatric neurology, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of neurologic disorders in children, teenagers, and young adults. During her years in practice in Reno, she was the only pediatric neurologist in the area with special expertise in neuromuscular diseases, such as muscular dystrophy. She also taught medical students and nurse practitioner students.
Prior to entering the medical profession, Dr. Knobler worked as a software engineer in the aerospace industry. Hughes Aircraft Company’s Radar Systems Group in Los Angeles (today, Boeing Defense, Space and Security) awarded her a Graduate Fellowship; as a Fellow, while attending the University of Southern California (USC), she wrote software used in Hughes’ revolutionary AWG-9 fire control computer and AIM-54 Phoenix missile, the longest-ranged air-to-air weapon in the world at the time. These systems made Grumman’s F-14 Tomcat the most-feared fighter jet in the world for thirty years. The U.S. Navy’s F-14, deployed on supercarriers, was featured in the movies “The Final Countdown,” “Top Gun,” and “Top Gun – Maverick,” as well as the acclaimed documentary “Speed and Angels.” Hughes ported some of Dr. Knobler’s display code to the AN/APG-63 radar aboard the McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15 Eagle. Dr. Knobler also assisted Hughes’ Space and Communications Group with software for the Ku-Band high-gain communications antenna/radar aboard the Space Shuttle. Later in her aerospace career, she went right on to write computer programs for NASA’s Deep Space Network, which controls space probes sent to visit other planets in our Solar System.
In 1971, Dr. Knobler, the recipient of a Regent’s Scholarship, was admitted to the Institute Honors Program, and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied mathematics, with top honors, from New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, a master’s degree in computer engineering from USC, and an M.D. from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine.
Dr. Knobler is an avid science fiction reader and a devoted follower of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books.