Background
Piskernik was born in Bad Eisenkappel in Southern Carinthia, which remained with Austria after the First World War, and held a doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Vienna.
Piskernik was born in Bad Eisenkappel in Southern Carinthia, which remained with Austria after the First World War, and held a doctorate in natural sciences from the University of Vienna.
She worked for the provincial museum in Ljubljana and taught in various secondary schools. As a nationally conscious Slovene woman, she was active in the Carinthian plebiscite and in a club of migrants. In 1943 she was imprisoned and detained in the Nazi concentration camp Ravensbrück.
After 1945 she became director of the Museum of Natural History in Ljubljana and worked in the conservation service.
In particular, she made efforts to renew and protect the Juliana Alpine Botanical Garden that was later incorporated into Triglav National Park. In the 1960s she headed the Yugoslav delegation of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps (CIPRA) and proposed a transnational nature park with Austria in the Savinja Alps and Karawanks.
The bilateral park was, however, never realized. She died in 1967 in Ljubljana.