I currently hold VENI research fellowship at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology. Two main compoentnes of this fellowship are

  1. Pair-bonds beyond the breeding season – a new approach to understanding divorce and fidelity using the power of Open Data
  2. SPI-Birds Network & Database, where I act as a manager and co-ordinator

I am also activly working on several other projects related to open science and transparency in ecology and evolution, use of meta-anlaysis for informed decision making, and probelms related to uncertainty inherent to observational data

During my undergrad and Masters at the Univeristy of Zagreb, I was also working as an ornithologist at BIOM - Croatian association for biological research and Croatian Institute of Ornithology, where I still hold research ties. I did my Masters thesis on the urban bird fauna, linking habitat traits of urban parks to the diveristy of breeding and wintering birds.

After that, I have done a DPhil at the Univerity of Oxford (2010-2015), on pair fidelity and divorce in monogmous species, followed by a postdoc position at the the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford (2015-2016). During this position, I have established scientific background for a project on life-history and population dynamics in bats. During my PhD I have developed an interest in the Open Science, and I have took up an exciting position at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology to lead a project on Open Science and Meta-Analysis in ecology and evolution. 

Affiliations

 

Scholarships, Grants and Awards

  • VENI research fellowship, personal grant (2018-2021)
  • RDA (research data alliance) EU Early Career support Programme for the RDA 9th Plenary (2017)
  • Conference travel grant, Welcome Trust, UK (2016)
  • Student scholarship, University of Oxford (2012-2014)
  • International Society for Behavioural Ecology student travel award (2014)
  • Wolfson College, University of Oxford, conference grant (2013, 2014)
  • Frankopan Fund Scholarship (2012)
  • Graduate Research Training and Support Grant, University of Oxford (2012)
  • City of Zagreb Student Scholarship (2005-2008)    
  • The Ministry of Science Scholarship, Republic of Croatia (2004)        

Invited talks and seminars

  • Fledgling meeting of the European Ornithological Union, Zagreb, Croatia (2020, Nov), plenary talk
  • Oxford Zoology Seminar Series, Oxford, UK (2020, April)
  • Wildlife Research and Conservation 2019, Berlin (2019): Uncovering population dynamic, habitat use, and life-history trade offs in bats and birds using capture recapture models
  • Open Science Conference, Berlin (2019): Low availability of code in ecology: call for urgent action.
  • NVG PhD Workshop, Egmond aan Zee (2018): What is Open Science and why practice it?
  • Cutting-Edge Ecology 2018: the science of the 21st century, NIOO-KNAW (2018): Think big: integrative approaches, open data and modern ecological research.
  • DANS Open Day on Open Science, Den Haag (2018): Open science and open data in ecological and evolutionary research.
  • Warsaw Seminar Series in Ecology & Evolution, University of Warsaw (2017): From pedigrees, through divorce, to microbes and CO2: how can fast growing data-landscape help ecological and evolutionary synthesis? 
  • Open Science fair, Athens (2017): An Ecology and Evolution view of Open Science.
  • NIOO seminar series, NIOO-KNAW (2017): Navigating the unfolding data landscape in ecology and evolution.
  • Seminar series, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam (2017): From pedigrees, through divorce, to microbes and CO2: how can fast growing data-landscape help ecological and evolutionary synthesis?
  • Behavioural Ecology Group Seminar, Wageningen University (2016): How does divorce fit into the story of social monogamy - a bird's eye view.
  • Biological Anthropology Seminar Series, UCL Anthropology, University College London (2015): From meta-analysis to social networks: what have we learned about fidelity and divorce in socially monogamous species.
  • International Conference on Evolution and Behaviour, Zagreb, Croatia (2014): From meta-analysis to social networks: what have we learned about fidelity and divorce in socially monogamous species.
  • Wolfson college seminar series, Wolfson college, Oxford (2013): Social networks and divorce?

Organizing symposiums and workshops

  • Data Lifecycles for Open Ecological and Biodiversity Research, Biodiversity Next Conference. Leiden, Netherlands (2019)
  • Open Science Tools, Data and Technologies for efficient Ecological and Evolutionary research, symposium and workshops, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2018), initiator and organizer of the event, more about the here, and interview here
  • Transparent meta-analysis and use of open data workshop. Open Science Tools, Data and Technologies for efficient Ecological and Evolutionary research, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2017). slides here 
  • Navigating the unfolding Open Data landscape in Ecology and Evolution. Workshop at the British Ecological Society Annual meeting 2017. Ghent, Belgium (2017), slides here
  • Transparent meta-analysis: a powerful tool for the researchers' toolbox. Workshop at the NIOO research days, Netherlands (2017)
  • Evolutionary biology and open science: practices, challenges and opportunities. ESEB meeting, Groningen, Netherlands (2017), slides here 

 

Conference talks (non invited)

  • European Society for Evolutiary Bioogy meeting, Groningen, Netherlands (2017)
  • Evolution 2917, Portland (2017) 
  • British Ecological Society Annual Meeting, Liverpool, UK (2016), slides here
  • Publishing Better Science through Better Data, Springer Nature, London, UK (2016): video of the talk here, slides here
  • Digital Infrastructures for Research Conference, Krakow, Poland (2016), slides here 
  • XVth European Society for Evolutionary Ecology meeting, Lausanne, Switzerland (2015)
  • International Society for Behavioural Ecology conference, New York, USA (2014)
  • Animal Behaviour Society Conference, Princeton University, USA (2014)
  • 1st Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology, Ottawa, Canada (2012)

 

Outreach Activities

 

 

Open Science in Ecology and Evolution
Open Science is changing the way scientific research is conducted. Open Science includes open (i.e. available to anyone to access and use) data, code, publications, and review. Increase in Open Data is especially valuable for complex fields of Ecology and Evolution. This project seeks to: Bridge...Read more
Pair-bonds beyond the breeding season – a new approach to understanding divorce and fidelity using the power of Open Data
In animals, as in humans, not all individuals pair for life. Pair-bonds and their stability likely affect survival and reproduction and hence influence all major evolutionary and ecological processes. Yet, we are far from understanding why some pairs persist while others do not, and how this...Read more

I have an extensive list of collaborators on my VENI project:

To name a few: Prof Ben Sheldon (University of Oxford), Dr. Josh Firth (University of Oxford), Prof Camilla Hinde (Wageninen Univeristy), Prof Matthysen (Belgium), Dr. Charmantier and Dr. Doligez (France), Prof Dingemanse (Gemany), Dr. Orell (Finland), Claudia Norte (Portugal).Prof Török (Hungary), Dr. Charter (Israel), Prof Belda (Spain), Dr. Juta (Japan), Dr. Cusimano (Italy), Dr. Hille (Austria), Prof Slagsvold (Norway), Pradel CNRS, France

Please see the full list of colaborators on the SPI-Birds Webiste https://nioo.knaw.nl/en/spi-birds