Maya Petek, PhD, is a member of the MB since 2021. She received her higher education in the United Kingdom, culminating in a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Now she works as a researcher at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Maribor. She became an active member of the society upon her return to Slovenia at the end of 2020. She is interested in scientific policy, removing administrative barriers, and encouraging the circulation of knowledge and experts between Slovenia and the international research community.

Matja Zalar, PhD is a member of the society since 2016. She is interested in mental health and scientific policy but takes particular interest in the knowledge circulation between Slovenia and foreign countries, introduction of good research practices into the Slovenian research and scientific sphere, and re(integration) of scientists into the Slovenian research sphere. Matja was an early-career researcher at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, where she received her PhD in biotechnology in 2020 as part of the international Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks project PIPPI (Protein-Excipient Interactions and Protein-Protein Interactions in Formulation). After postdoctoral positions at Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester, she returned to Slovenia to the University of Maribor with the help of the Aleš Debeljak Scheme. She is the coordinator for the Young Academy of Slovenia Mental Health Working Group and a member of the Mental Health Working Group at Eurodoc.

Dr. Majda Pavlin is a member of the society’s Supervisory Board from 2017. She presided over the committee of evaluators for the Mentor of the Year Award in 2018. As an early-career researcher, she worked at the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Jožef Stefan Institute. As a former president of the IPS Student Council, she is well familiar with the issues concerning doctoral students. She received her PhD in 2018 in Ecotechnology from the Jožef Stefan IPS and has been working as a researcher at the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute since 2019. Apart from being a mom, which takes up much of her free time nowadays, she is also actively involved in the Science on the Street, Knowledge and Ideas on the Go action, devoted to promoting science in the public sphere.

After finishing chemistry studies at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Maribor, Alja Čontala decided to continue her journey as a young researcher at the Advanced Materials Department at the “Jožef Stefan” Institute and International Postgraduate School. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Toledo, USA. For the time of her undergraduate studies, she worked in faculty bodies. She has been a member of the Young Academy since 2022 and works as part of the working group for mental health, but is also interested in mentoring and leadership, organization of doctoral studies, and communication. She wants to bring compassion back to science, raise awareness of its importance to the general public, and inspire younger generations about it.

Dr. Ana Slavec was a member of the Management Board of the Young Academy in the terms of 2015-2017 and 2017-2019, the president of the evaluation committee for the Mentor of the year 2015 award, and a member of the supervisory committee in the terms of 2019-2020 and 2023-2024. From 2018 onwards, she led the Young Academy’s working group for open science, and in 2018 and 2019 she also co-coordinated Eurodoc’s working group for open science and  conducted training for open science ambassadors. Since 2020, she has been a member of the MB COST Action Researcher Mental Health (CA19117). From 2015 to 2019, she was the co-host of MetaPHoDcast on Meta’s List. She was a young researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences of UL, where she received her doctorate in statistics, and is currently an assistant professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technology of the University of Primorska and a researcher at the InnoRenew CoE center of excellence in Izola.

Danila Rijavec was a member of the society’s MB from December 2019 to December 2022. In 2022, she finished her PhD thesis on administrative science through the lens of crisis management at the Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana. In her research, she focuses on smaller countries and their limitations in responding to larger crises, contrasting the smaller countries’ responses with those of bigger countries. She is active in the larger international research sphere and participates in the Jean Monnet Networks as an early-career researcher. She is a member of the faculty commissions for doctoral studies and scientific research activities. From July 2020 to December 2022 she was the coordinator for the Mobility Working Group at Eurodoc, and from July 2021 to December 2022 she also acted as an Administrative Board member and the Treasurer of the same organisation. As a member of Eurodoc, she has been a guest at multiple events addressing the topics of training for early-career researchers, which were organised in cooperation with Elsevier, EUA, The Guild, and ELITE Network.

Dr. Rok Novak became a member of the Young Academy of Slovenia in 2019 and has been actively participating in the society’s activities since the middle of 2021 when he was elected to the MB. He is mostly interested in science policy, both in the systemic changes within the scientific community and the relationship between the scientific community and the state. He has first-hand knowledge of the issues faced by doctoral students as he was the president of the IPS Student Council. In the past years, he has become increasingly involved with science communication.

Marko Drobnjak acted as a public relations coordinator for the society from 2019 to 2021. He is most interested in science policy as he maintains that properly financed and successful scientific activity within all scientific disciplines drives societal progress. Since 2018 he has been an early-career researcher at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. In his research, he focuses primarily on the role and perception of speech and language in legal procedures in general and is also working on automatic speech recognition systems. He uses the methodology developed by computational linguists and is currently undergoing research training as a Fulbright Visiting Student Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also finishing his PhD thesis. In 2020 he became one of the hosts for the Meta PHoDcast. In October 2022 he started the position of open science specialist at the Academic and Research Network of Slovenia – ARNES.

• Maša Mlakar, mag. angl. – EN/SL translation, EN proofreading
• Simon Zidar, dipl. biol. (UN) – graphic design
• Nina Lenarčič Jankovič, Majanafin d.o.o. – accounting
• Maja Ratej (Val 202), Renata Dacinger (RTV SLO), Anja Suvorov (RTV SLO), Mojca Delač (Radio Prvi), dr. Ambrož Kvartič (Radio Ars), Lea Udovč (N1) – professional event moderation
• Studio Železna – photography
• VideoLectures – event filming, livestreaming