She obtained her master’s degree in 1976 and her PhD in chemistry in 1979. She became Research Associate in 1986, Senior Research Associate in 1991, Research Advisor in 1998, and Permanent Research Advisor in 2003. In 2008, she was elected Full Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, University of Rijeka, and in 2012, she was elected Full Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb.
From June 1, 1984, to the end of 1985, Dr. Majerski was on postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota in the group of Prof. P. G. Gassman, a world-renowned expert in the field of small strained molecules. As Visiting Professor, she spent several months at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA (1988) and at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA (1998, 2000, and 2003), and also worked at numerous international scientific institutions (Polish Academy of Science, Institute of Physical Chemistry, Warsaw, Poland; South African Universities: RAU, Johannesburg, University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth, Natal University, Durban; Lanzhou University, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou, China; University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA; State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA).
Since 1990, Dr. Majerski was Head of the Laboratory for Synthetic and Physical Organic Chemistry, which since 1995 has been named the Laboratory for Synthetic Organic Chemistry, a position she held until her retirement on January 1, 2015. She was Principal Investigator of numerous national (12) and international scientific projects and contracts (8).
Her research covers synthetic, physical organic, and supramolecular chemistry: the preparation and study of strained polycyclic molecules, the synthesis of biologically active polycyclic compounds, the synthesis of crown ethers and cryptands, the synthesis of anion receptors and the study of their molecular recognition of cations and anions, and more recently, the study of binding of polycyclic molecules with cucurbiturils.
Prof. Majerski has published more than 320 works to date, including more than 150 original scientific papers in international journals indexed in Current Contents, cited more than 1,700 times (according to WoS). In addition to research papers, her output includes around 150 presentations at national and international conferences, 17 review papers, 8 patent applications, and 3 book chapters.
For her scientific work, she was awarded the State Prize for Science in 2004.
In addition to her scientific activity, she has also made a strong contribution to education. She has supervised numerous diploma theses (16), master’s theses (7), and doctoral dissertations (12). As a recognized expert in organic synthesis, she has participated in postgraduate university teaching and delivered invited lectures at universities in Zagreb, the USA, South Africa, Poland, China, at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU), in the company Pliva, and at several international conferences.
Throughout her successful career, Dr. Majerski also served as reviewer for projects (MZOŠ, Croatian Science Foundation, Slovenian Science Agency, Polish Science Agency, NSF-USA, NRF-SA, FWO-Belgium) and as reviewer for numerous international journals (J. Org. Chem., Tetrahedron, Tetrahedron Lett., Eur. J. Org. Chem., Chem. Med. Chem., Arkivoc, Heterocycles, Molecules, Chem. Rev. and others).
She held many positions at the Ruđer Bošković Institute and beyond. From 1989 to 1994 she was a member of the Election Committee for Chemistry, and from 2002 to 2005 she was Chair of the Scientific Council of the Chemistry Division at the Institute. From 2002 to 2004 she was a member, and later Chair, of the Youth Committee of the Scientific Council of the Institute. From November 2004 to June 2005 and from 2008 to 2014 she was Head of the Division of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry. From 2005 to 2009 she was Advisor to the Director of the Institute for science and education, and from June 2005 until the end of 2014 she was a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute.
She is a member of the Croatian Chemical Society, and from 1993 to 2016 she was a member of the editorial board of the journal Croatica Chemica Acta. She served two terms, from 1992 to 1998, as President of the Section for Nomenclature in Organic Chemistry of the Croatian Chemical Society and HDKI. She was also a member of the Scientific-Organizing Committee of the 18th Croatian Meeting of Chemists and Chemical Engineers, Zagreb, 2003, and a member of the Organizing Committee of the 13th European Symposium on Organic Chemistry, Cavtat, 2003. From 2006 to 2009 she was President of the Section for Organic Chemistry of the Croatian Chemical Society, and from 2009 to 2015 representative of the Society at EuCheMS (European Association for Chemical and Molecular Science, Division of Organic Chemistry). Since 2005 she has been a member of the Study Council of the Postgraduate Program in Chemistry, Faculty of Science.
From 2009 to 2017 she served two terms as Chair of the National Committee for Natural Sciences – Chemistry, and from 2013 to 2017 she was a member of the Accreditation Council of the Agency for Science and Higher Education. In 2017 she was also appointed to the Committee for Follow-up in the Reaccreditation Procedures of the Accreditation Council. She is a member of the Chemistry Panel of the Croatian Science Foundation.
