Olga Shvarzman

Head of the algorithms team, control & monitoring unit, ISTAR and EW division
41, Married, lives in Petah Tikva

"The beauty of science is that even though we think we know a lot about the world, it's an illusion. During my doctorate, I began feeling that I wanted to implement my knowledge and create influence. I was lacking a sense of mission and wanted to contribute to national security"

“The beauty of science is that even though we think we know a lot about the world, it’s an illusion. During my doctorate, I began feeling that I wanted to implement my knowledge and create influence. I was lacking a sense of mission and wanted to contribute to national security”

Olga Shwarzman wanted to be a physicist for as long as she can remember. “I read Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time’ at a very young age. I wanted to understand what particles do, what black holes are,” she says. “The beauty of science is that even though we think we know a lot about the world, it’s an illusion. There is no perfect theory of physics. It’s a little disappointing, as an idealist, but it also leaves room for imagination.”

My story

Unsurprisingly, Olga studied physics. During her doctorate she worked as a tutor at Bar-Ilan University. She arrived Elbit about eight years ago through a friend. “During my doctorate I began feeling that I wanted to implement my knowledge and create influence. I was lacking a sense of mission and wanted to contribute to national security,” she says.

In her present position in the ISTAR and EW division, Olga is certainly realizing her ambition, as head of the algorithms team. “It’s very exciting to see the products, and I can only say that this is an excellent system.”
Olga was born in Belarus, immigrated to Israel at age 9 and grew up in Kfar Saba. Her parents are both engineers, and from childhood, she was encouraged to excel at school, especially in the sciences field. The descriptions of her childhood memories are full of humor and self-awareness. “When I got sick, they’d read me Newton. That was unusual for kids but I didn’t know it, and enjoyed it. Now my parents are more relaxed, but over the years I studied physics, they’d say being a physicist isn’t a profession and it isn’t too late to switch to computer science.”

She doesn’t have many happy memories of Belarus. “The antisemitism was everywhere. My father wasn’t allowed to pursue a doctorate because he was a Jew. That’s one of the reasons why it was so important for him that I would study. There was also fear of the ramifications of Chernobyl, which happened in 1986 quite near where we lived.”
Olga and her spouse Stanislaw live in Petah Tikva with their cat Jerry. She and Stanislaw met while studying physics at university. He also headed for high-tech. In her spare time Olga enjoys hydroponic gardening at home. “I have the equipment on the counter and grow lettuce and other leaves and enjoy adding them to my salads.”

They say about me

"Olga has an admirable ability to find solutions for every problem that arises in the system. As an algorithm engineer, she has special abilities, and her solutions are highly creative while considering their application and integration in systems. Olga led and created an innovative solution in an innovative project, working with the customer at the relevant unit together with participating military industries."