She is the first woman to have been elected to the SANU Department of Technical Sciences and was one of the 12 women newly admitted as corresponding members of the Academy in this year’s election. A graduate of the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, it was also there that she completed her master’s studies and defended her doctoral dissertation, while she served as a full professor of this college until 2022. The mother of a successful daughter, she also has two grandchildren
She has been a visiting professor at Italy’s University of Trento, America’s Ohio University, Laval University in Quebec, Canada, and Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. She also had longstanding collaboration and shorter professional residence stays at the Jožef Štefan Institute in Ljubljana, the Politehnica University of Bucharest and China’s Shandong University, Jiangsu Normal University and Fudan University.
She is today a full professor of the Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Protection at Belgrade’s Union – Nikola Tesla University, while she is also engaged at the University of Novi Sad’s Faculty of Technical Sciences.
Born in Belgrade in 1957, Vesna Mišković Stanković attended the city’s Saint Sava Primary School while living in the street of the same name, directly opposite umestu right across the street from the city’s famous Temple of Saint Sava. She has fond memories of school saint’s days, when the pupils would be greatly excited in preparing school performances. She graduated from the 14th Belgrade Gymnasium secondary school and subsequently the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University of Belgrade, always excelling as the top student of her generation. This en sured that, during her university studies, she received four awards of the Academic Panta Tutundžić Fund as the best student of her class, from the first to the fourth years of her studies. An only child, she grew up in a house of university professors and was raised in accordance with what she learned living with them.
“The first things I learnt were related to the concept of work, to work discipline and a system of values. My parents worked and read constantly, and I adopted that as the way things should be. I was raised to prioritise moral norms that had to be respected, and that’s something that’s remained with me forever.”
I was raised to prioritise moral norms that had to be respected, and that’s remained with me forever
Vesna’s parents were second generation of graduated engineers of metallurgy who spent their working lives as professors at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy. It would be easy to conclude that they actually influenced her choice, but that isn’t the whole truth.
“I liked to read books and one of my options was to study Serbian language and literature. However, I had an equal love for chemistry and that turned out to be an enduring commitment. That’s why I graduated in organic technology and continued dealing with chemistry and materials engineering.”
Professor Mišković-Stanković’s main contributions to science have been in the fields of materials science and materials engineering, particularly biomaterials. They encompass the synthesis, characterisation and development of technologies for obtaining and applying multifunctional materials with defined properties – organic, oxide-based and polymeric coatings on modified metal surfaces, as well as bioceramic composite coatings and hydrogel composites representing biomaterials for applications in orthopaedics for bone and soft tissue implants.
Her significant scientific literature opus has included the publishing of one monograph of international importance, eight chapters in monographs of international importance, one monograph of national importance, 162 papers published in journals on the Science Citation Index list and 43 papers in national journals, as well as 312 scientific papers presented at international and national meetings. She has given 51 guest lectures, holds two registered patents and four technical solutions. She has also managed and participated in 13 international projects and 13 national ones.
According to the Scopus citation database, her works have been cited 5,055 times and she has a rank of 44 on the Hirsch (h) index, while the Google Scholar database accredits her with 6,665 citations and an h-index ranking of 51. She is ranked among the world’s most influential scientists in all fields of science as published by Stanford University (Top 2% of scientists in the world) for her entire career and the individual years of 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. According to the AD Scientific Index World Scientist and University Ranking for 2023 and 2024, she is one of the top 10 Serbian female scientists living and working in Serbia (2021).
A member of the Serbian Scientific Society and the Academy of Engineering Sciences of Serbia, she is deservedly also an honorary member of the Serbian Chemical Society and its former president (2017-2021). A member of the Electrochemical Society of America and the International Society of Electrochemistry, she is a recipient of nine gold medals, two silvers and one bronze at international innovation exhibitions.
Prior to the most recent elections, the Technical Sciences Department of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts didn’t include a single woman. Vesna became the first on 19th November this year, after having been suggested by the Department of Technical Sciences itself. She was also one of the 12 women among the 22 new corresponding members admitted to SANU this year. She admits that this is one of the most pleasant surprises and fundamentally important changes ushered in by the November elections.
“It would be understating the situation to say how great an honour and recognition this election to SANU is for me. And I’m glad that 12 women candidates were elected in this election cycle. Academic Vladimir Kostić, as SANU president over the previous two terms, as well as current president Zoran Knežević, contributed a lot to these positive changes. For me, SANU is primarily a top scientific institution, representing a national and historical category of enormous importance, and being a member of SANU is a special honour and acknowledgement.”
CorD’s interlocutor explains what it means to be on Stanford’s prestigious list of the top two per cent of the world’s most influential scientists in all fields.
“To be on that list, and I’ve been on it for five consecutive years, is very important. It is important due to the recognition of our science around the world, personal satisfaction and colleagues, while it is also very important because of our young associates, young researchers who can thus find motivation for their work.”
The ratio between men and women in my work is far more favourable in our country than elsewhere, even in managerial positions
We asked her if she represented a rarity as woman in this field of work, both here in Serbia and around the world.
“From the time of my student days, and later during my career as a professor, the ratio of men to women in our country was generally 50-50. However, it seems to me that there are more female students today. Given that I collaborate with colleagues from various universities around the world, I know that there are many female researchers in our country, in my profession, more than there are male colleagues. With that awareness, I headed out into the world and was generally surprised to find that I was among the few women in those collegial circles. For instance, I was at the Faculty of Engineering in Seoul, where the Department of Mechanical Engineering had only one female professor, while the other ten were men. I found exactly the same situation at Ohio University. As such, I think the situation is much better in the engineering profession in our country, at least when it comes to the equal representation of the sexes.
“Interestingly, I was at a major national congress on corrosion in the U.S. that included five thousand participants, very few of whom were women. One session was organised dedicated precisely to this problem, which presented analysis of numerous stats showing that the number of women in science is falling significantly compared to the number of graduate students, and that the number of women professors at universities is even lower, while the number of females in management positions is negligible.”
A very simple explanation was offered: first through marriage, and then childbirth, women tend to disregard jobs that require serious scientific work. Vesna even heard the same story in the highly technologically developed country of South Korea.
“South Korea is a very rich country that invests a lot in scientific research, while it is simultaneously a very traditional country that nurtures family values. That’s why young women often can’t pursue a career in their chosen scientific field because they have to conform to the rules of life. On the other hand, numbers of marriages and children are also declining today, which is explained by the fact that young women don’t only want a family with children, but also a career.
“Due to these numerous revelations and comparisons with our country, I can state unreservedly that the ratio between men and women in our work is far more favourable in our country, even in managerial positions.”
This scientist has forged a very successful career, but has also had a good marriage and raised a daughter who is today herself a successful scientist and doctor with two children of her own. Vesna’s husband, Dragan, was a pharmacist and director of the Serbian representative office of a major pharmaceutical company. Of course, she could also always count on the help of her parents, particularly her mother.
“My husband and I shared the workload, but my mother was always there for our daughter. Without her help, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve such success in science. I’m very well aware of how complicated it is to have a demanding job, a family and a child. My daughter, Iva Stanković Tutuš, is in that same situation today. She is a neurologist and clinical assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine, while her husband, Vladimir Tutuš, is an anaesthesiologist and also a clinical assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine. They both have very demanding jobs, but I’m always there for them, as a grandmother who adores her grandchildren, Mila and Marko, who represent an endless source of happiness and pleasure for me.”
Plagiarism exists in science today, as it does in other areas of life. That’s why honesty is the first basic postulate in science
As she explains: “I was fortunate that I did my job with enthusiasm and still do, and that it represents a great source of satisfaction for me.” She was also fortunate that her job was never subjected to any political machinations. She is aware of what a privilege that is. She has lived her two parallel lives with a degree of ease: one dedicated to her family, the other committed to science and a profession that enabled her to establish precious contacts with people around the world, make acquaintances with great people in her work and forge friendships that have meant a lot to her. Her residence visits as a guest professor in South Korea are particularly interesting.
“What I found particularly interesting in that milieu was the culture, behaviour and value system. For example, children there are taught Confucianism from an early age. And the foundational postulate in that teaching is respect for elders, firstly parents and teachers. The profession of teacher and professor is afforded the highest admiration and respect. With an awareness of that, it makes me very sad when I see how certain students behave towards their teachers. In Korean society, professional positions are acquired exclusively by graduating from top faculties. There are 600 universities, which are strictly ranked from 1st to 600th place, and attending a good faculty allows a young person to gain an excellent starting position for their career.”
South Korea is known for investing huge resources in its schooling and education system, and for allocating approximately eight per cent of the state’s total budget to science. A large number of the country’s graduate students head to America to earn their doctorates, but it is obligatory for them to return to their home country after completing their studies.
“I’ve written many recommendations here in Belgrade for my students who were departing for the wider world, and I was happy that – in terms of knowledge and abilities – they were on equal to everyone in America or anywhere in Western Europe. On the other hand, I was always sad that the best students left and never returned. Fortunately, some other new, young student would appear and everything would start all over again.
“I had an opportunity to talk with a fellow professor from Israel who told me that their best students also leave to undertake their doctoral studies in America. I asked him whether or not they return afterwards, and he seemed not to understand what I was asking him. There it is a given that they will all return to their own country. Unfortunately, our best students rarely return, because as a state we aren’t able to offer them the kind of working and living conditions that they enjoy there.”
Friends are a precious part of Vesna’s life.
“I have my closest female friends, who I’ve been hanging out with throughout my life. I share beautiful moments with them, but they were also beside me when I was enduring difficult moments. Life is much easier and more beautiful with friends, which is why they’re greatly precious to me.”
She emphasises the very important role played by the professors who taught her, particularly her academic mentor Dragutin Dražić, under whose guidance she completed her doctoral dissertation and with whom she worked closely for many years. She learned from him very early on that experimentation is the most important thing for the natural sciences, as it determines one’s understanding of the essence of processes. She would later pass this knowledge on to many generations of her own students and younger associates.
It comes as no surprise that professor Mišković Stanković is strict towards her students – strict, but fair. She considers it essential to have knowhow, because without it you can have major problems in your work.
Interactions between student and professor, when you create something together, is irreplaceable and phenomenal
“When my students would head out into the world, they would often tell me how good it was that I’d sought that they learn everything they would need, because they often confirmed how essential some of that knowledge was for them wherever they happened to find themselves.”
Is it possible to compare scientific research work, which is her first love, with teaching work? Vesna says she can’t compare them and explains why.
“Work with students represents in-person contact in which you see just how much of the knowledge you attempt to pass on to someone else is really passed on. That interaction between student and professor, when you create something together, is irreplaceable and phenomenal. Work in the laboratory without working with students is something I can’t imagine. They can exist without each other, but the right combination is when they go together.”
Who sets ethical boundaries in science? This it today a very important and complex issue. For example, science strives to create new materials that will be used for implants in the body or new medicines. And what is the ethical issue here?
“The ethical issue is that the purpose of science in medicine is to help the patient. Everything that is new, that could help a person, is necessary and no other question is posed. All that matters is that it has proven useful and beneficial to mankind. Of course, plagiarism exists in science today, just as it exists in other areas of life. That’s why honesty is the first and most fundamental postulate in science.”
Our interlocutor was once asked whether life is chemistry or alchemy, to which she responded: “Life is both chemistry and alchemy. There are many things in life that can be planned and carried out, and explained and even predicted, just like in chemistry. However, with the passing years it seems to me that there is ever-more alchemy. That’s because, in some of the most important human frameworks that we cannot influence greatly, life is nonetheless alchemy.”