Mona Hagyard with Solar Vector Magnetograph, 1990. US physicist Mona J. Hagyard joined NASA in 1967 after completing her doctorate in physics. She worked in the Research Projects Lab (later the Space Sciences Laboratory) on the Skylab Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) solar experiments. She also served as an expert in space science and was a principal investigator on the Solar Maximum Mission in the 1980s. She became director of the Solar Vector Magnetograph Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama, USA. This instrument has provided pioneering research in solar magnetic fields. Hagyard became Team Leader of Marshall's Solar Observatory in 1980. She was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 2000. Here, she is working at the Solar Vector Magnetograph, observing the solar magnetic field on 24 October 1990.