About employee

prof. dr. sc. Borna Fürst Bjeliš

Title: Full Professor
Function:Chair, IGU Commission on Marginalization, Globalization, and Regional and Local Response
Location: 228
Public phone number:01/4895 428
Internal phone number:428
E-mail: E-mail
Department: GEOG - Division of Regional Geography and Methodic
Graduation year:1983
mr.sc. graduation year:1990
PhD graduation year:1996
Employed in this institution since:1989

Teaching

undergraduate

graduate

integrated undergraduate and graduate

Consultations

CONTACT HOURS 

LECTURES IN WS 2024-25

REGIONAL CONCEPTS Tuesday 10:30 - 14:00 GEOG 3. (link)

ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY Wednesday 16:00 - 19:30 GEOG 3. (link)

OFFICE HOURS : after every lecture /  via ZOOM appointments or e-mail

The courses are not available for students in mobility programmes in this semester 2024-25

 

DOCTORAL PROGRAMME:

The course WORK IN SCIENCE: Friday 15:00-20:00  (GEOG 1) following the previous announcement at Doctoral study programme web page.  OFFICE HOURS : via e-mail or ZOOM appointments.

Biography

Borna Fuerst Bjeliš, senior researcher and full professor at the University of Zagreb. In 2012, she was awarded the “Federico Grisogono” prize for scientific achievement and outstanding contribution to the development of geography in Croatia, in 2021 she was awarded the  Croatian Geographical Society Science Prize, while in 2015 she was awarded the plaque and medal of the University of Zadar (Croatia) and in 2020 the plaque of the University of Mostar (Bosnia & Herzegovina) in recognition of outstanding contribution to cooperation.

In the period 2017-19 she was Vice President of the European Society for Environmental History. Since 2016, she has been a member of the Steering Committee of the IGU Commission on Marginalisation, Globalisation and Regional and Local Responses, while in 2020 she was appointed Chair of the Commission.

She graduated in geography from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Zagreb in 1983, obtained her MSc in 1990 and her PhD in 1996. Since then, she has visited several foreign research and educational institutions (St. Gallen, Bern, Madrid and Boston) with the aim of specialising in the field of environmental history, landscape change and regional and local community development. She speaks English (C) and French (B).

Since 1989 she has been working at the University of Zagreb (Faculty of Sciences, Department of Geography). For many years she was involved in the management of the University of Zagreb, the Faculty of Science and the Department of Geography (among numerous other positions, she was Vice Dean for International Cooperation and Chair of the Doctoral Programme in Geography for 8 years).

Her area of specialisation is environmental history and landscape change, with a spatial focus mainly on the Mediterranean karst area, including the development of research methods (historical cartography, GIS), border areas, spatial perceptions and spatial (regional) identities. Since 2007, she has been head of a project on environmental changes, cultural landscapes and regional identities funded by the Ministry of Science and the University of Zagreb, project coordinator of two international projects (Swiss Science Foundation) and collaborator in a number of other scientific projects (6). In addition to conference presentations, she has given 11 invited or plenary lectures at conferences and international summer schools in Europe, Canada and the USA. She is the author /co-author and editor of 6 scientific books and more than a hundred papers, while the results of her research have been published in more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and book chapters to date.

Since the beginning of her academic career, she has taught 20 courses from bachelor to doctoral level at the University of Zagreb in the Geography and Environmental Science programmes, as well as in the  PhD programmes at the Universities of Zadar (Croatia) and Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

She currently teaches Environmental history, Mediterranean studies, Regional concepts and Work in Science and Research methodology in environmental and cultural landscape studies/modules in the PhD programme. She has supervised more than 80 Bachelor and Master theses and 10 PhD theses.

She is co-author of the university textbook „Historical Geography of Croatia“ (University of Split), editor of the open access book "Mediterranean Identities - Environment, Society, Culture" (InTechOpen) and editor of Croatian editions and author of chapters in two books on environmental history: “What is Environmental History” by D. Hughes and “The Global Environmental History” by I.G.Simmons (Disput). She is also author and co-editor of the Springer book series "The perspectives on geographical marginality" and "Environmental History" (volume "Environmental Histories of the Dinaric Karst" ). She is co-author of  the scientific monograph "The Historical Geography of Croatia - Territorial Change and Cultural Landscapes" in the Springer series "Historical Geography and Geosciences".

She is a member of a number of international and national scientific organisations, in most of which she was/is a member of the board (International Geographic Union; European Society for Environmental History; Association for Croatian Studies; Association of American Geographers/ Specialty group Environment and Perception; Croatian Geographical Society; Croatian Cartographical Association; Croatian Geomorphological Society). She is a member of the editorial boards of the leading Croatian geographical and environmental history journals and a number of other European journals.

She has been the member of scientific committees of many national and international conferences. She was the initiator and chair of the local organizing and scientific commitee of the first IGU conference  held in Croatia, in Dubrovnik (2012) as well as the chair of the local organizing committee of the 9. biennial conference of the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) in Zagreb (2017).

She has been the representative and coordinator of the Regional Action Center – Croatia of the  International Year of Global Understanding (2016), the initiative of the International Geographic Union  - IGU.

She is also engaged in popular science (journal editorial, popular science TV shows and interviews, public lectures).

Published papers recorded in the Croatian Scientific Bibliography Database (CROSBI)

Note: this list of papers is located in an maintained by the Ruđer Bošković Institute which is in charge of the Croatian Scientific Bibliography Database (CROSBI). This link will take you to the appropriate CROSBI page of this person, containing a list of papers they have themselves entered in the database.

Show CROSBI records
For further information and for instructions on changing the above data, please contact help@bib.irb.hr.

List of select publications

PUBLISHED BOOKS

 

B. Fuerst-Bjelis et al. (Eds.): Environmental Histories of the Dinaric Karst, Springer 2024. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-56089-7

B. Fuerst-Bjeliš, E. Nel & S. Pelc (Eds.): COVID-19 and Marginalisation of People and Places, Springer, 2022. DOI:10.1007/978-3-031-11139-6

 

B. Fuerst-Bjeliš & N. Glamuzina: The Historical Geography of Croatia.Territorial Change and Cultural Landscapes, Springer, 2021. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-68433-4

Book review  by Radu MÂRZA in Territorial Identity and Development (TID)Volume 7 / No. 1, Spring. 

Book review by David S. Hardin in Historical Geography 49, 97-99. doi:10.1353/hgo.2021.0009.


B. Fuerst-Bjeliš & W. Leimgruber (Eds): Globalization, Marginalization and Conflict, Springer, 2020. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-53218-5

   

B. Fuerst-Bjeliš (Ed.): Mediterranean Identities – Environment, Society, Culture, IntechOpen, 2017.DOI: 10.5772/66587

 

N. Glamuzina & B. Fuerst-Bjeliš: Historijska geografija Hrvatske, University of Split - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Split, 2015. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.1.2077.2883.

Hobbies and interests

Humanitarian and environmental engagement

Friend and donor to UNICEF Childhood Guardians ProgrammeSOS Children's Village Lekenik Croatia and  independent, non-profit and non-governmental organizations Greenpeace Croatia and Animal Friends Croatia.