Women in Science Profiles
Dr. Evelin Vatovec Krmac
If women scientists are considered to be curious, creative, anxious to learn, eager to get to the bottom of things that interest them, consistent and exact in their work, then I can say that I am a scientist. The very beginning of my scientific career goes back to my early childhood when I studied the functioning of things, mechanisms and machines. I also liked to dismantle and assemble different objects and to solve logic puzzles and riddles. Officially, this path started quite a few years after I had finished my BSc degree, to be more exact, it started when I got my first son out of the nappies and started working at the faculty. In my postgraduate studies I focused on mechanisms and strategies for reuse in software development. In my PhD thesis I studied this theme also from the legal aspect, i.e. from the aspect of intellectual property rights, which through reuse can be endangered or even violated. This can be a serious problem also in all other scientific fields.
Since I work at the Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transportation my main area of research in recent times are the forms and ways of supporting transport, traffic and logistics operations and services with appropriate information systems. I have applied myself to this topic in individual research work as well as within the Laboratory for Informatics in Transport – I head this laboratory for quite some years now – and the Laboratory for Transport Logistics which will finally be founded this year.
To be a scientist can be very fulfilling, at times your work even gets the adrenalin rushing, but it is also straining. Much depends on the environment in which you work and on the working conditions. The intensity and findings of scientific work are also greatly influenced by the family and children as women scientists who are also mothers sometimes have to make sacrifice in one sphere or the other. Maybe this is why the world of science is still predominantly a men's world.