Education:
• From October 2007 - PhD candidate in Sociology at University "Babes-Bolyai" Cluj. Thesis Neocorporatism in post-communist Romania. Coordinator Professor Vintila Mihailescu.
• November 2001 - September 2007 - PhD candidate in Political Science at the Bucharest National School of Political Science – SNSPA. Thesis: The Structure and the Dynamics of the Trade Unions-State Relation in East Central Europe during the Transition Period; coordinator Professor Adrian Miroiu.
• June 2001 – Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. MA with distinction in Political Science with the thesis Trade Unions and Political Participation in East – Central Europe. A Cross-National and Longitudinal Comparison; supervisors Professor Gabor Toka and Professor Laszlo Bruszt .
• June 2000 – graduated from the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Political Science Department. BA with distinction in Political Science with the thesis The Romanian Trade Union Movement During the Transition Period ; coordinator Professor Gabriel Badescu.
Study programs:
• March 21-29, 2004 – International Policy Fellowship training in public policy research, analysis and policy paper writing.
• June 29 – July 12, 2003 – Summer University organized by The Central European University, Budapest – the course “The politics of market making and industrial relations in Europe”; course directors Laszlo Bruszt and Andras Toth.
• June 22 – August 18, 2002 – Summer Program in Advanced Quantitative Methods, ICPSR, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
• April 19-29, 1999 – The National School of Statistics organized by The Faculty of Political Science, Cluj-Napoca, and The Open Society Foundation, Romania.
Academic fellowships:
• October 2005 July 2006 Academic Fellowship Program Returning Scholar Fellowship, Higher Education Support Program, Budapest.
• October
2004 –
January 2005 - Woodrow Wilson
International Center
for Scholars, Washington D.C., East European Studies Fellowship.
• March 2004 – February 2005 – International
Policy Fellowship, Center for Policy Studies and Open Society
Institute, Budapest.
• June – July 2003 – Central European University, Summer University Full Fellowship.
• August 2002 – June 2003 – Civic Education Project, Local Faculty Fellowship.
• June – August 2002 – Open Society Bucharest, Romania full fellowship at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research - ICPSR, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.
• October 2001 – SNSPA full fellowship for doctoral studies in Political Science.
• August 2000 – June 2001 – Open Society Foundation Budapest and Central European University full study scholarship at CEU Budapest for Master of Arts studies in Political Science.
Awards, grants:
• 2005 APSA travel grant.
• 2006 ECPR mobility grant.
Professional experience:
• From October 1 st , 2001 to present – Associate Teaching Assistant at the National School of Political Studies, Political Science Department – courses on Statistics for Social Sciences; Comparative Political Analysis; Qualitative Methods in Social Sciences; Sociology of Interest Groups; Analysis of Political Parties; and seminars in Comparative Politics , Political Science Paradigms and Basic Concepts in Political Science.
• October 2002 – June 2004 – lecturer at the Invisible College, Romanian Society of Political Science, for the courses lectured in English, Applied political analysis: Quantitative methods in political science (2002-2003), and Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences (2003-2004).
• March - August 2000 – intern in central and local public institutions as part of an internship program called “Interns in Public Institutions”. The program was organized by Pro Democracy Association, a non-governmental organization and was financed by National Endowment for Democracy and USA State Department – Public Affairs Section.
• March 1998 – Ministry of the National Education, in Bucharest – assistant for the relation with central public institutions (Parliament and Ministries) to the Advisory Team of the Minister of Education (Andrei Marga).
Visiting lectures:
• April 7, 2005 Public lecture at the Central European University : Problems of inter-denominational cooperation in Romania in the post-communist period .
Research experience:
• April 2009 – February 2010 – Coordinator of the project „Development of Civic Participation in Romania. Stimulating citizen information and participation in elections for Romania representatives in the EU Parliament and Presidential elections in Romania, in 2009”, http://www.testvot.eu/, grant no. RO 0010CD01 offered to Median Research Centre, financed by the Financial Mechanism of EEA http://www.eeagrants.org .
• February 2008 – April 2011 – European Union Framework Program 7 - member in the research team of Median Research Centre in the project „PIREDEU Design Study - Providing an Infrastructure for Research on Electoral Democracy in the European Union”, coordinated by the European University Institute http://www.piredeu.eu.
• Octomber 2008 – April 2009 – Coordinator of the project „What citizens want? Promoting substantive representation in Republic of Moldova and Romania”, http://www.testvot.eu/, grant no. 101531 offered to Median Research Centre, financed by The German Marshall Fund of the United States, through the program The Black Sea Trust For Regional Development.
• September 2008 – August 2010 – European Union Framework Program 7 - member in the research team of Median Research Centre in the project „EUROPOLIS - A deliberative polity-making project”. Grant no. 225314, coordinated by University of Siena, Italy. http://www.europolis-project.eu/
• October 2005 – September 2009 European Union Framework Program 6 expert in the research team of Median Research Center in the project EUREQUAL Social Inequality and Why It Matters for the Economic and Democratic Development of Europe and Its Citizens: Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe in Comparative Perspective . Project director Professor Stephen Whitefield, University of Oxford.
• March 2004 – February 2005 – Research project “The church-state relations in Romania : Towards centralization or modularity?” The research is funded by a grant offered by The Open Society Institute and Center for Policy Studies, Budapest. The research is mentored by Professor Zsolt Enyedi from CEU Budapest. Project director Lecturer Aurelian Muntean, SNSPA.
• 2004 - Member of the research team for the "Political Culture and Civic Engagement In Romania" project, funded by CNCSIS, project director Professor Gabriel Badescu, University "Babes-Bolyai" Cluj.
• June 2003 September 2005 Research coordinator for the fieldwork in Romania for the project MORESS - Mapping of European Social Sciences and Humanities . The project is financed by the European University Association and the European Commission. Project director: Prof. Adrian Miroiu, SNSPA.
• October 2003 - May 2004 – Coordinator with Laurentiu Stefan Scalat, Andrei Gheorghita and Razvan Grecu, at the Invisible College Romanian Society of Political Science, for the research “ Parties, organizations and individual actors: behavior, influence and political recruitment” .
• April August 2003 European Union Framework Program 5 - research collaborator in the international project Integrating the Balkans in the European Union , managed in Romania by Romanian Academic Society - SAR. Project directors Prof. Loukas Tsoukalis and Dr. Ruby Gropas; for Romania - Prof. Alina Mungiu-Pippidi.
• October 2002 – June 2003 – Research coordinator at the Invisible College, Romanian Society of Political Science, for the research Evaluating differences of impact of two interest groups on the democratization process in Romania . The Invisible College Romania is financed by a grant from the US Embassy in Bucharest.
• March 2002 – November 2002 – Research coordinator in the project Romanian trade unions and the EU integration process , conducted by SNSPA and FILIA Center. The project was financed by the Open Society Foundation Romania and the European Commission, PHARE Program, in the program Map of Actors and Issues in the Accession of Romania to the EU. Project director Prof. Adrian Miroiu, SNSPA.
• December 2001 – January 2003 – Research collaborator with the Romanian Academic Society, Bucharest, an academic think tank. Member of the team of the Annual Early Warning Report, ordered by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and financed by UNDP Romania.
• December 1998 – Participant in research projects conducted by the Faculty of Political Sciences in Cluj-Napoca concerning Political and Social Attitudes of Citizens and Political Participation and Organization Membership.
Publications and translations:
• Church-state relations in Romania : problems and perspectives of inter-denominational cooperation at the level of church-based NGOs in Journal for the Study of Religion and Ideologies . No 12. Winter 2005.
• Labor Movement and Civic Attitudes in East-Central Europe in Romanian Journal of Society and Politics Vol.5 No.1, 2005.
• Issues in Implementing New Methods in Course Design in How to Teach Political Science? Experience of Young University Teachers ; European Political Science Network EPSNet; 2005; Editor Gabriela Gregusova.
• Why the health system reform has failed in Romania in Dilema veche , no.71, 2005.
• The reform of the pension system in USA in Dilema veche no.66, 2005.
• “Romanian Labor Movement Between Workers' Padded Coat and European Values: New Perspectives on Romanian Trade Unions” in Globalization, Integration, and Social Development in Central and Eastern Europe , Bogdan Voicu and Horatiu Rusu editors, Sibiu: Psihomedia Publishing Company 2003.
• Translation,
with Magda Muntean, of Consolidating the Third Wave
Democracies ,
1997, Larry Diamond, Marc Plattner et all., eds., published
in Romanian in 2004 at Polirom Publishing House,
• “The failure of public governance in Romania” , co-author with Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Sorin Ionita, at and published in the review of the 2003 NISPAcee Annual Conference.
• “Trade Unions and the European Integration” in Map of actors and problems of integration of Romania in EU, Open Society Foundation 2003.
• Translations from Adam Przeworsky, Guillermo O'Donnell, Marc Plattner, Andreas Schedler, published in The Romanian Journal of Political Science – POLSCI , Volume 2, Number 1, April 2002, edited by the Romanian Academic Society.
• “The Challenge of Social Cohesion. Trade Unions and the Social Agreement ” in the UNDP Annual Early Warning Report , Romania 2002, edited by Alina Mungiu Pippidi, Iasi: Polirom Press.
• “Dacă protest nu e, nimic nu e” in Dilema no.479, 2002.
• “Mişcarea sindicalã în România în perioada de tranziţie” [“Trade Union Movement in Romania during the Transition Period”]. In G. Badescu, C. Marian and I.Culic (eds.). Studii de comportament politic [ Studies of political behavior ]. 2001. Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitara Clujeana.
• “The Trade Unions in the Eastern and Central Europe, before and after 1989” , published in The New International Standard, No. 2, 1999, Cluj-Napoca.
• “Trade Unionism and Citizen Participation in the Romanian Transition” published in the review of the Third Edition International Conference on Political Science, Cluj-Napoca, 1999.
• September 2006 Co-Chair with Romana Careja (Bern Universitat) of the panel "A new century of corporatism?" at the First ECPR Graduate Conference, Essex.
• November 2005 Paper Church-state relations in Romania: problems and perspectives of inter-denominational cooperation at the level of church-based NGOs presented at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Romanian Society of Political Science, Oradea, Baile Felix.
• September 2005 Paper presented at the 101 st Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Washington D.C. The paper Romanian Civil Society and Its Active Role in the 2004 Elections: From Monitoring to Blackmail Potential is co-authored with Andrei Gheorghita .
• July 2-3, 2004 Fifth Annual Conference of the Romanian Society of Political Science, Bucharest. Participant with the paper Political behavior of Romanian trade unions in the 2004 local elections: Between actor and spectator co-authored with Domnica Ciolan and Cristina Bobu.
• June 18-19, 2004 European Political Science Network (EPSNet) 2004 Annual Conference, Prague. Participant with the paper Problems of teaching political science in Romania's restructuring academic field: Implementing new methods in course design .
• September 5-9 2003 – participant at the international conference “Globalization, Integration, and Social Development in Central and Eastern Europe”, organized at the University “Lucian Blaga” of Sibiu; with the paper “Trade union leaders and the process of integration in EU: new perspectives on Romanian trade unions”.
• April 10-12, 2003 – participant at NISPAcee Annual Conference “Enhancing the capacities to govern: challenges facing the CEE countries”, Bucharest, Romania, with the paper “The failure of public governance in Romania” , co-author with Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Sorin Ionita.
• January 25 - 28, 2001 – participant at the seminar „L'Importance de la protection sociale dans le procesus d'integration de l'Europe en tenant compte de l'impact de la mondialisation”, Paris, France, organized by CEET and financed by the European Commission, with the paper “ Social Protection in Hungary – Governmental Theme in the European Union Integration Process” .
• October 28 - 30, 1999 – participant with the paper entitled Trade Unionism and Citizen Participation in the Romanian Transition , at the Third Edition of the International Conference on Political Sciences, organized in Cluj-Napoca by the Faculty of Political Sciences.
• January 30 - February 7, 1999 – participant at the International Student Seminar in Public Policy at the Center for Public Affairs of Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Hungary.
• March 1997 – participant at the “Friedrich Hayek Seminar”, organized in Cluj Napoca by the Faculty of Political Sciences. The topic of the seminar was liberalism in the economy of the European Union.
• Since June 2003 – member in the American Political Science Association.
• Since October 2002 – member in the Romanian Society of Political Science (SRSP). Between September 2003-November 2005 - Member in the Board of SRSP.
• Since January 2003 – doctoral member in the European Political Science Network.
• Since January 2005 member in the Southern Political Science Association.
Foreign languages:
• English – reading, writing, speaking - fluent
• French – reading, writing, speaking - fluent – DALF diploma (Diplôme Approfondi en Langue Française)
• Italian – reading –intermediate; writing and speaking - basic.
PC / Mac operation skills:
• Very good skills in SPSS and AMOS. Average skills in Stata. Basic skills in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX.