Prof. Marijana Carić, Ph.D. earned her doctoral degree in the field of technical sciences from the Faculty of Technology, University of Novi Sad. She has received several national and international awards for her contribution to the development of science and application of research results in the field of biotechnology.

Before she started her career of an academic, professor and researcher, Prof. Marijana Carić had another career which she was developing simultaneously during her high school and college days. That was the career of an athlete, namely a tennis player.

Prof. Carić began playing tennis at the tennis club “Vojvodina” in Novi Sad. Marijana, also known as Maja Matejić, which was her maiden name, was immediately noticed as a talented young player who quickly started winning trophies at many tournaments. Her first appearance at a junior championship was when she was only fifteen years old.

The following year, a sixteen-year-old girl, who was an excellent student of the Gymnasium “Jovan Jovanović Zmaj" in Novi Sad, returns to the state championship, where she wins the title of the champion of former Yugoslavia, amid fierce competition in Subotica. That same title she successfully defended in Zagreb the following year.

In those days, the newspapers wrote much about a talented young athlete who achieved remarkable results with exceptional speed, while still being an excellent student, unchanged in character as a modest and reserved girl. This was actually one of the headlines in the sports newspapers of those times.

Numerous international tournaments followed: Roland-Garros, Monte Carlo, Poertschach etc. as well as tournaments in former Yugoslavia, but a truly remarkable success of our female players from that time was Marijana’s success at the Wimbledon Junior World Championship, when she reached the quarter-finals of the tournament.

Alongside with her demanding sports engagement, Maja Matejić gets enrolled in the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad. Already in the first year she stands out as a student with the highest grade point average in her generation. Studies did not stop her from winning the title as a senior at the Serbian tennis championship for the third time in a row. The newspapers wrote about the incredible success and balance that she managed to establish, between her career of an athlete and her studies. She was also awarded a scholarship by the University of Novi Sad for outstanding results achieved in the first year of studies.

However, from that point onwards, she could not continue to achieve excellent results on both sides- sports and science. As Maja Matejić once said it in an interview, it was questionable how long she would be able to pursue both careers at the same time with equal success. The answer came at the end of her second year of studies and Maja made her choice.

She graduated after four years, so she managed to finish within the designated time, and over the course of her studies she was continuously awarded by the University of Novi Sad for outstanding results.

The journalists predicted it well that Maja Matejić would eventually become Prof. Marijana Carić, Doctor of Science and Professor Emeritus, who helped us find out some interesting and little known facts about her life's journey, during which, at one point, two equally successful, incredible careers were intertwined, the career of a tennis player and that of a scientist and university professor.

Hey, students! I’m sure this is something you didn’t know!

Champions are among you, some champions are even students of the University Business Academy in Novi Sad!

Alongside with the President of the University Council of the University Business Academy, Prof. Marijana Carić, we are proud to have as our students the medal winners of the 31st Olympic Games in Rio. One of them is Miloš Ćuk, a water polo player and winner of the gold medal, who is a student of the Faculty of Economics and Engineering Management. Our students are also silver medalists of the Serbian kayak team, Marko Tomićević and Milenko Zorić, who are currently studying at the Faculty of Law for Commerce and Judiciary and the Faculty of Economics and Engineering Management.

We hope these young successful people will serve as role models and inspiration to all of you, especially at times when you have to make difficult life choices, when faced with serious challenges or in periods of self-doubt and self-examination, which even the most successful among us experience from time to time.