People

Hrvoje Šikić (PhD, University of Florida 1993), Professor of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Professor Šikić is the author of over 60 research papers published in prestigious journals in Probability and Stochastic Processes, Harmonic Analysis, Math Applications in Biology, Medicine and Economics. He was a Marie Curie IOF Fellow 2014-17 (Washington University in St Louis). During his career, he visited over 20 Universities and Institutes and presented over 100 public lectures. He served on several academic and governing committees, including the Vice President of the Croatian Mathematical Society, Vice president of the University Board, Head of the University Scientific Committee, Head of the Doctoral Program in Mathematics, Editor-in-chief of the oldest Croatian Mathematics research journal Glasnik Matematički. He received numerous awards, including the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences Prize for 2009, the Republic of Croatia Science Award for 2011, the Andrija Mohorovičić Award for 2018 and the University of Florida Preeminence Award 2019. He is also a three-time recipient of the student award Brdo for the best lecturer at the Mathematics Department. In his free time, Professor Šikić enjoys hiking with his family and friends.
Matija Bašić (PhD, Radboud University, Njjmegen, The Netherlands, 2015), Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Professor Bašić is a researcher in two fields: algebraic topology and mathematics education. He was a teacher for more than 15 mathematics courses and currently teaches Category Theory and Didactics of Mathematics. He is also highly involved in professional development of in-service mathematics teachers. He was the leader of two Erasmus+ projects Mathematics Educations – Relevant, Interesting and Applicable (MERIA, 2016-2019) and Teachers’ Inquiry in Mathematics Education (TIME, 2019-2022) gathering about 15 partners from Denmark, The Netherlands, Slovenia and Croatia. He also participates in other scientific and professional projects. He is the coordinator of Alumni club of the Department of Mathematics and the organizer of various career events connecting students with the job market. He is member of the executive board of the Croatian Mathematical Society and the main coordinator of mathematical competitions for school students in Croatia.
Pavle Goldstein (PhD, University of Wales, Swansea), Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Pavle Goldstein has been working in mathematical biology for a while.
He has collaborated on various projects involving researchers from diverse fields – molecular biologists, geneticists, structural biologistis, and such. He is mainly working in biological sequence analysis, and is especially interested in machine learning methods for analysing protein mulitple alignments.
Luka Grubišić (PhD, Fernuniversitaet in Hagen, Germany 2005), Professor of Numerical Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Professor Grubišić is the author of over 40 research papers published in prestigious journals in Numerical Analysis, Applied Mathematics, Operator Theory and Marine Engineering. During his career, he visited over 10 Universities and Institutes and presented over 30 public lectures in institutional colloquia. He served on several academic and governing committees, including as the Vice President of the Croatian Mathematical Society, Vice Dean of the Department of Mathematics, Editorial board member of the research journals Glasnik Matematički and Application of Mathematics. In his free time, Professor Grubišić enjoys sailing and racing small sports catamarans.
Miljenko Huzak (PhD, University of Zagreb 1997), Professor of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Professor Huzak is the author of over 25 research papers and book chapters from fields of statistics and probability to applications of maths in biomedicine. He was leading or participated in over 12 various research and/or applied projects from statistical inference of random processes and actuarial science to economics and biology. During his visit at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, he was working on several projects in mathematical modelling in biomedicine. He presented his work on over 30 international research and other public meetings and seminars. During his career, he served as president of the Croatian Society for Theoretical and Mathematical Biology, head of Postgraduate Program in Actuarial Mathematics and head of the Graduate Program in Mathematical Statistics.
Petra Korać (PhD, University of Zagreb), Associated Professor, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Petra Korać received in 2002 M.Sc. in molecular biology from the Department of Biology at the Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She received her PhD at the same Institution, in the field of immunobiology and physiology. Concurrently, she enrolled in the master of science and research management program at Medical School Zagreb/Andrija Štampar School of Public Health Policy, University of Zagreb, Croatia, and has successfully completed it in 2009. She started to work as a research/teaching assistant at Departments of Internal Medicine and Pathology, Medical School Zagreb, University of Zagreb, in 2004. She remained a research/teaching assistant in a field of molecular pathology until 2012. During that period, she collaborated with many national and international senior scientists and conducted professional trainings at prestigious scientific institutions abroad (Institut de Neurosciences Phisiologiques et Cognitives-CNRS, Marseille, France and John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK). From 2012 till 2017 she worked as assistant professor at Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, where she is currently working in the field of biomedicine as associate professor. As an active researcher she participated in many national and international projects. Her main interest is medical genetics: mechanisms of tumor development and progression, communication between tumor cells and their microenvironment and influence of pathogens on signal pathways in host cells. She teaches at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programs at Department of Biology, Faculty of Sceince, and participates in courses at Medical School and at the University of Applied Health Sciences. She is a member of Croatian Biological Society, Croatian Society of Biologists in Health Care, Croatian Association for Cancer Research/ European Association for Cancer Research and Croatian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Toni Nikolić (PhD, University of Zagreb), Professor of Biology (Botany), Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Professor Nikolić’s primary areas of work are systematic botany, biogeography and biodiversity of flora. He is the author of more than 70 scientific articles and almost 400 other authorized texts. He has participated with more than 90 presentations at national and international conferences. He is the author of 15 books (monographs and textbooks) and the editor of 5 multi-author books. He has led or been a collaborator on a number of domestic and international scientific and professional projects. He gave 20 invited and plenary lectures. He is the founder of the Croatian Botanical Society and the initiator and first editor of the Journal of the Croatian Botanical Society. He has received several awards for his work, including the 2007. Silver Medal from the Organization for Plant Taxonomy in the Mediterranean Area for the best botanical edition (Red Book of Croatian Vascular Flora) and the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences Prize for the highest scientific and artistic achievements in 2014. In his spare time, Professor Nikolić likes to hike and cycle.
Filip Sedlić (MD: School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 2005; PhD: Medical College of Wisconsin, 2010), Associate Professor of Pathophysiology, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb.

Professor Sedlic is the author of over 25 research papers and several book chapters. He completed the postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Anesthesiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, and also attended the International Scholars Program, Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of California Riverside. Professor Sedlic participated in many research grants, including NIH PPG and R01, Horizon 2020 grants and a European structural grant. Currently, he is a principal investigator of Croatian Science Foundation grant. The areas of research interest include mitochondrial bioenergetics and biomarkers of heart diseases and cancer, mitochondrial unfolded protein response in human cardiomyopathy, analysis of multiplex interactions among large number of mitochondria in living cells and cancer reprogramming. He serves as the Secretary of the Applied Genomics Committee, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and is a member of several professional societies, including Croatian Society for Laboratory Medicine and the Croatian Society for Precision (Personalized) Medicine of the Croatian Medical Association, Croatian Association for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Therapy and the Croatian Medical Chamber. During his career, prof. Sedlic serves or served as a mentor for several graduate and medical students. He presented lectures at domestic and international scientific conferences. Prof. Sedlic also received numerous awards, including Graduate Student Abstract Award, presented by the Division for Cardiovascular Pharmacology of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Graduate Student Best Abstract Award, presented by the Medical College of Wisconsin, Excellence in Physiology Award presented by the Department of Physiology, Medical College of Wisconsin. Prof. Sedlic teaches several undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
Goran Šimić (Mathematics Gymnasium Zagreb, 1985; M.D., School of Medicine, University of Zagreb 1992; M.S., Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, 1995; Ph.D., School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 1998), Professor of Neuroscience and Anatomy, Croatian Institute for Brain Research, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb.

Goran Šimić is a tenured Professor of Neuroscience and Anatomy and the Head of the Neuroscience Department at the Croatian Institute for Brain Research of the University of Zagreb Medical School. In the department, Professor Šimić leads the Laboratory for Developmental Neuropathology. His laboratory has extensive expertise in the neuropathology of developmental and neurodegenerative disorders and has established international cooperation on biomarkers for brain diseases, especially Alzheimer’s disease. For his work on the etiopathogenesis of spinal muscular atrophy, Professor Šimić received The Kurt Jellinger Prize from Acta Neuropathologica and Springer-Verlag in 2008. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Translational Neuroscience journal from 2010 to 2016. In his free time, Professor Šimić plays games and online chess. More you can find at his homepage http://dementia.hiim.hr.
Josip Tambača (PhD, University of Zagreb 2000), Professor of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Professor Tambača is the author of more than 60 research papers in significant scientific journals, mostly in Applied Mathematics and some in Biomedical Engineering and Medicine. He spent a semester in Department of Mathematics of University of Houston and started colaboration with researchers from Texas Medical Center on mathematical modeling of phenomena in human cardiovascular system. He got the Republic of Croatia Science Award for 2019. and also in 2001. for young scientists. In his free time he enjoysspending time with his family and playing badminton.
Inga Urlić (PhD, University of Zagreb), Associate Professor, Division of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.

Professor Urlić is the author of 30 research papers and book chapters from the field of biomedicine. She was leading and participating in 5 scientific project, two R&D project and two professional projects. She is actively teaching 4 courses for molecular biology students of Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb. She is an active member of International Society of Applied Biological Sciences, European Association for Cancer Research, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Society and Croatian Biological Society. Her professional interests are cancer biology, drug delivery systems, stem cell biology and tissue engineering of bone and cartilage.

Statement: There will be no more progress in biology and medicine without more mathematicians. The enrollment in this programme will make you aware of biology and medicine success but also of their current limitations that could be solved in future with you expertize.
Kristian Vlahoviček holds a PhD in Bioinformaticsand works as a Professor in Computational Biology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.

He won the EMBO Young Investigators Programme installation grant and has been running an internationally competitive research group in Croatia for past 15years. He had several international appointments, including the 10 year stay at the International Center for Genetic Engineering in Trieste, Italy and a 4-year adjunct professorship at the University of Oslo, Norway. His bioinformatics group develops computational tools and uses machine learning techniques to tackle open questions in developmental genomics and metagenomics.

He published 50 papers, some in highly prestigious journals like Nature, Cell, PNAS, PLoS Computational Biology. He is the recipient of the National award for science and the Annual science award of the Croatian academy.

Kristian is the founder and owner of Exaltum – a research intensive company focused on knowledge management.