International Conference of CEEPUS Partners: Strengthening Networks, Expanding Horizons
Read the bios of distinguished speakers presenting at the conference to learn about their expertise and professional achievements.
Veronika Kuti
Short-term programmes: summer schools/intensive courses, short-term excursions
Veronika Kuti is a CEEPUS IRO and Erasmus+ Institutional Coordinator at the Episcopal Theological College of Pécs, Hungary since 2022. Doctoral student at the Ecumene Doctoral School of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Dr Natasza Styczyńska
Short-term programmes: summer schools/intensive courses, short-term excursions
Dr Natasza Styczyńska is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University. Her academic interests include party politics, nationalism, populism and Euroscepticism in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She leads the JU team in Horizon Europe REGROUP Rebuilding Governance and Resilience out of the Pandemic research project and is a director of studies of Joint BA in European Studies at Jagiellonian, which was developed within Una Europa University Alliance as the first ever joint BA programme. She is also the coordinator of the CEEPUS Network entitled “Europe from the Visegrad and Balkan Perspective”. Previously, she participated in numerous research (Polish National Science Center, UK Economic and Social Research Council, Jean Monnet Networks, Horizon 2020) and educational projects (Jean Monnet, Erasmus Plus Capacity Building, Visegrad Fund).
Dr. Habil. József Gál PhD
Short-term programmes: summer schools/intensive courses, short-term excursions
Dr. Habil. József Gál PhD, associate professor of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Szeged, previously - for several cycles - the deputy dean of international relations. During his work, he considers it particularly important to expand the horizons and perspectives of students and instructors, to introduce and experience professional competences in different cultures. In his work, he considers helping to organize a significant number of mobilities implemented by the Faculty of Engineering and the inclusion of STE mobilities accepted with credit in the student's studies as an outstanding success. His work - as a network partner coordinator - has been recognized several times with the CEEPUS Ministerial Award.
PhD Zoltán Horváth
Preparing for the labour market: internships, research partners and silent partners
PhD Zoltán Horváth, Director of the Institute for Computer Science at the Faculty of Informatics, Eötvös Loránd University. Head of the Doctoral School of Informatics, Head of the Department of Programming Languages and Compilers, and President of the Strategic Committee of EIT Digital East Region. Being a full professor, and the former dean between 2012 and 2022, he has been the director of the Computer Science MSc programme at the faculty. Having a significant track record as leader of national, EU and industry funded education, research and innovation projects, he has made serious efforts to strengthen the collaboration of faculties of Computer Science in the CEE region. Since 1998 the leader of network HU-0019 (International Cooperation in Computer Science), winner of 3 Ministers’ Prize of Excellence in 2004, 2007, 2019.
Zoltán György Bács
Network management, communicating with partners: possibilities and challenges
Zoltán György BÁCS Dr. univ., Ph. D. assistant professor at Ludovika University of Public Service. He is a former diplomat, author of almost sixty publications in four languages. He specializes on terrorism, on national security, on innovative assessment and evaluation methods, on radicalization and on drug problems and organized crime in Latin America.
He served as a diplomat in Moscow, Kiev, Baku, Minsk and Buenos Aires. Between foreign assignments, he worked for international and national private companies in Hungary. Dr. Bács is fluent in Spanish, English and Russian languages.
Milan Rackov
Network management, communicating with partners: possibilities and challenges
Milan Rackov is a full professor at the University of Novi Sad, the Faculty of Technical Sciences.
He participates in performing auditory and computer exercises and lectures in the departments of mechanical, graphic, traffic engineering and mechatronics.
Milan Rackov is the organizer of the International Conference on Machine and Industrial Design in Mechanical Engineering – KOD. He was the editor of the scientific journal "Machine Design".
Milan Rackov is the main coordinator of the network CIII-RS-0304 and the local coordinator of three other CEEPUS networks.
He is a member of the Council of the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad.
Ilinca Ilian (Taranu)
Quality of mobility: teaching content, impact and career development
Ilinca Ilian (Taranu) is Associate Professor at the West University of Timisoara. Since 2010, she is the editor of the journal Colindancias – Revista de la Red de Hispanistas de Europa Central and coordinator of academic exchanges between several universities in Central and Southeastern Europe by the CEEPUS programme. She has been a guest professor at Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, in Monterrey, México (2001-2002) and the École de Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (2011). She published several dozens of articles in scientific and cultural journals and she is author of the books Las novelas de Julio Cortazar y la literatura europea (The Novels of Julio Cortazar and the European Literature), El Occidente de al lado –modernidad y literatura en la Europa Central (Monterrey, 2008), Julio Cortázar and Robert Musil – consonancias, divergencias y ecos (Madrid, 2013). Her main lines of research are the 21st century Latin American prose and the reception of Latin American literature in the former socialist space in general and in Romania in particular, during the Cold War. In parallel to her research and teaching work, she is dedicated to literary translation, and her translations include Rayuela by Julio Cortazar, Movimiento perpetuo by Augusto Monterroso, Altazor by Vicente Huidobro and El beso de la mujer araña by Manuel Puig.
Email: ilincasn@gmail.com
Professor Jelka Geršak
Quality of mobility: teaching content, impact and career development
Professor Jelka Geršak is a university professor of Clothing science at the University of Maribor. Her research focuses on clothing science and human thermal physiology, based on the study of complex aspects of the clothing system, textile material performance, and wearing comfort, and more recently on functional and intelligent clothing. She was project leader of more than 20 scientific projects, 4 scientific programs, 15 international scientific projects, and author of numerous studies for industry. Nine doctoral theses, 10 master's theses and more than 200 diploma theses were carried out under her supervision.
She is the author of 2 books, 4 monographs, 2 patents, about 85 scientific papers published in international journals and more than 150 scientific contributions in international conferences. Since 1997 she is a coordinator of the CEEPUS network SI-0217. She is also a member of numerous editorial boards of scientific journals. She has been a member of the Croatian Academy of Engineering Sciences since 2009. She has received several awards for her research activities.
Email: Jelka.Gersak@um.si
Dr. Gergely Dezső
Beyond mobility: joint research, publications, extra activities in networks
Dr. Gergely Dezső works at University of Nyíregyháza as a full-time professor. He graduated as chemistry-physics teacher and obtained his PhD in physics at University of Szeged. He is involved as teacher in five engineering and two teacher training study programs, and in charge of the vocational teacher training with mechanical engineering and mechatronics specialization. His research activities are in the field of additive manufacturing and simulation of technical tasks. He has been participating in the CEEPUS program since 2005 as partner coordinator. Currently, he takes an active role in the operation of four networks.
Cezary Mańkowski
Beyond mobility: joint research, publications, extra activities in networks
Cezary Mańkowski has been a Ceepus Program Partner Unit coordinator of the RS-1011 network on logistics in the University of Gdańsk for seven years. He takes the position of assoc. professor at the Dep. of Logistics in the Faculty of Economics, located in Sopot. Professionally, he offers lectures on modelling of logistics processes, supervises PhD dissertations, makes researches and conducts publishing activities in the area of logistics, and supply chain management.
Galia Marinova
Building-in and building-on achievements: utilizing results and taking them even further
Galia Marinova graduated as engineer with Masters degree in electronics in 1988 and received a Ph.D. in 1994 in Technical University of Sofia. Since 2011 she has been associate professor. She has 12 doctoral students. She is author of more than 100 scientific papers. She’s coordinator of the CEEPUS network: CIII-BG-1103-09-2425. She’s coordinator of IoT-ECO CBHE Erasmus+ project, contact person in CYBERCITY 2023-1-IT02-KA220-HED-000157723. G. Marinova is IEEE CAS and WIE Senior member, Vice-chair of IEEE CAS/SSC Chapter and Chair of the IEEE WIE affinity group in Bulgaria.
Veronika Stoffová
Joint degree, joint thesis supervision – possibilities and challenges
Veronika Stoffová is a university professor at the TU in Trnava. She received her “Ing.” degree and Ph.D. degree in Technical cybernetics (TC) at STU in Bratislava. The degree of dr. hab. she received in TC at AU in Brno and in Teaching mathematics (TM) at CPU in Nitra. She received the degree of university professor in TM at CPU. She worked as a university teacher at STU, AU in L. Mikuláš, CPU in Nitra and JSU in Komárno. Her main research interests are oriented towards the computer modelling and simulation of systems in different fields of science. She also deals with the use of AI in teaching and learning process. She is author or co-author of more than 300 publications. She is doctoral study supervisor at ELTE in Budapest and at PU in Olomouc.
Assoc. prof. dr. Gabriella Donáth-Nagy
Joint degree, joint thesis supervision – possibilities and challenges
Assoc. prof. dr. Gabriella Donáth-Nagy
Education: 1989-1994 – Babeș Bolyai University of Cluj, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
1994-1997 – Doctoral School, Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Faculty of Chemistry, Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry Department.
Academic career – since 1999 teaching assistant, lecturer and associate professor at ”George Emil Palade” University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology of Targu Mures, Head of Physical Chemistry Department.
Coordinator of CEEPUS Network RO-0010 since 2012.
Zsuzsanna Tarr
Joint degree, joint thesis supervision – possibilities and challenges
Zsuzsanna Tarr is an agricultural agronomist, specialised English translator and PhD in environmental sciences. Head of International Education Center and Institutional coordinator of Erasmus, Ceepus and Pannonia programmes at Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences with more than 25 years of experience. Received 3 Ministerial Awards: E-Quality Award (2004), Excellent Erasmus Coordinator Award (2007) and Ceepus Award of Ministers (2021). She was General Secretary, now a treasurer of IROICA (International Relations Officers’ Network of the Association of European Life Science Universities) the standing Committee of ICA (Association for European Life Science Universities).
She is a project coordinator of Danube AgriFood Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters degree. MATE has 18 Ceepus networks, out of them Zsuzsanna coordinates the HU-03 Agriculture and Environment in the 21st Century network since 1998. This Ceepus network application was the best in 2023 with 89,23 points and the second best in 2024 with 90,37 points.
Pavel Ptáček
Promotion of networks: different target groups, different messages
Pavel Ptáček, professor assistant at the Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies.
Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic. He is human geographer and regional scientist; he was at the very beginning of GEOREGNET network in 2006 (by that time at Palacký University in Olomouc) and since 2019 coordinates the network.
Andrea Toldi
Promotion of networks: different target groups, different messages
Andrea Toldi is the CEEPUS coordinator of the SOWOSEC network, the faculty coordinator of the international students and a language teacher at the University of Debrecen Faculty of Health Sciences. She was the project assistant to the World Health Organization Regions for Health Network in Hungary and co-edited the first SOWOSEC book for teaching purposes. She is one of the authors of the English-Hungarian Social Work Dictionary. She is currently a PhD student of the Doctoral Program in Political Science of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School in the University of Pécs.