I am a PhD student at the University Duisburg-Essen. In the past I studied chemistry at the University of Novi Sad [Serbia]. After graduating, I became an employee of Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad. Through working there I learned many things about chromatographic analysis of environmental samples, so in order to learn even more, I applied for the Remediate project.

Currently, under Prof. Dr. Schmidt’s supervision I am trying to develop and apply novel methods for compound specific stable isotope analysis (CSIA) of environmental samples. CSIA is being used for wide range of applications. From environmental analysis, through determination of origin and/or authenticities of pharmaceutical and food products, doping control, to reaction mechanism study etc. However, the need for perfect separation of analyzed components can sometimes be common obstacle in all of these fields. Therefore my interest is to study more thoroughly the use of solvent-free extraction techniques (SPME, ITEX, P&T, HS) and multidimensional gas chromatography in order to develop more powerful methods and finally, to test them on environment samples.

Chair of Instrumental Analytical Chemistry, of which I am part of, is not devoted just to CSIA and chromatographic analysis. It also unites research in ion mobility spectrometry, advanced oxidation processes, phase-transfer processes at aqueous interfaces etc. into study of water and environment pollution.

The university itself is located in two cities, Duisburg and Essen, and it came to being through merger of two separate universities in 2003. Now, UDE is one of the youngest and one of the ten largest universities in Germany.

Although I usually tend to have high expectations in life, which often leaves me disappointed, after arriving in Germany things somehow turned out to be much better than I could ever expect. I hope this is not just temporary thing, and I hope this impression will last for a long time.