Maja Zelić

Maja Zelić

Maja Zelić, PhD candidate in Information and Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb

Picture this – your flight is delayed, and everyone in your group, each on their own phone, navigates into the information woods. Information floods in from all directions, creating a whirlwind of parallel, chaotic data. Then, someone steps up – a person who connects, organizes, and evaluates all these pieces of information, transforming the information chaos into a cohesive, strategic decision that aligns everyone toward a shared goal. That someone is the manager.

I’m Maja Zelić, senior project manager at VSB, the international project developer for wind energy and photovoltaics, and a doctoral student in Information and Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. I was chosen as the Croatian representative and fellow of the Wirth Institute, a community that promotes research in history, culture, and language – all fundamentally reliant on projects, events, and information sharing. This is an opportunity for me to experience and further explore collaborative information behavior, the very focus of my doctoral research.

I don’t just talk about project management theoretically – I teach it at Aspira University College, and I also contribute my knowledge and skills to the local community as a council member in the municipality of Klis. And, of course, there is my favorite team – my family. Our "six-pack family plus dog" might seem like a complication nowadays, especially when you’re trying to locate your belt, charger, headphones, or socks!!! Fighting windmills :) But fighting windmills together, we seek, share, and use information, turning our collective knowledge into a wind farm. And the wind farm generates power!

Here in Edmonton, I’m catching a new wind :) Each morning, I rise at 1 AM, balancing work and family from afar until 9 AM. With the beautiful Canadian sunrise, I make fresh connections within the Wirth Institute, explore a new culture, and strengthen ties with the European community here in Canada. Of course, I've kept only one wind consistent: the one that takes me to the kitchen for lunch at 7 AM! (Yes, my dear family and friends, I miss you a lot – but don’t worry, I’m still eating ‘lunch’ on time. Croatian time).

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