Svetlana N. Khonina received a degree (Hons.) in applied mathematics from the Systems Engineering Faculty, Kuibyshev Aviation Institute, in 1989.  After graduation, she started working as an Engineer-Programmer with the Samara branch of the Central Design Bureau for Unique Instrumentation of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was transformed in 1993 into the Image Processing Systems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPSI RAS). Since 1993, she has been a Researcher; since 1994, she has been a Senior Researcher; and since 2002, she has been a Leading Researcher of the IPSI RAS. She combines scientific activity with teaching. Since September 1995, she has been working part-time with the Department of Technical Cybernetics, SSAU. Starting, she held an assistant position and then took positions of a Docent and a Professor successively. Since 2007, she has been working as a Professor with the Department of Technical Cybernetics at Samara National Research University. In 2015, she took the position of Chief Researcher with the Laboratory of Laser Measurements, Image Processing Systems Institute of the RAS–Branch of the FSRC, “Crystallography and Photonics” of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Her research interests include diffractive optics, singular optics, mode and polarization transformations, optical manipulation, and optical and digital image processing.