DR. ALEKSANDRA TURKOVIĆ
Physicist
Zagreb, Croatia
Dr. Aleksandra Turković was born on April 6, 1946 in Zagreb, Croatia. She pursued
her studies at the University of Natural and Mathematical sciences in Zagreb.
In 1970 she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nuclear Physics. Afterwards,
she enrolled in graduate courses at the "Ruđer Bošković" Institute,
where she received a Master of Sciences degree in Atomic and Molecular Physics
in April 1975. Subsequently, she spent academic years 1975 to 1976 and 1978
to 1979 at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado in the US; she also
spent six months in 1977 at Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, England, working in
the field of solid electrolytes. After returning home, she applied new experimental
techniques at the Laboratory for semiconductors at "Ruđer Bošković"
Institute, where she has been working in since 1979. In 1980 she defended her
Ph.D. thesis in the field of Solid-State Physics at the University of Zagreb.
At present she works as a Senior Research Associate at the "Ruđer Bošković"
Institute.
During her postdoctoral research period from 1983 to 1988 Dr. Turković was invited
as research scientist to visit different universities. In April 1983 she visited
laboratory of Professor Arnold Lünden at Chalmers University in Sweden. From
May to June 1986 she worked with Professor Bruno Scrosati´s research group at
the University of Roma in Italy. She gave a lecture on solid electrolytes for
Professor Werner Sitte´s group at the University of Graz in Austria. Additionally,
in March and April of 1988 she visited Professor Roger Linford´s group at the
University of Leicester in England, and delivered a lecture on copper solid-state
battery systems. In the summer of that same year she visited Professor Günter
Leising´s group at the University of Graz twice. Beside this, she attended workshops
in Solid State Ionics 1984 and Non Conventional Energy Sources in 1985. Following
these travels, Dr. Turković has introduced new fields and methods at home laboratory.
Acting on the proposal of foreign partners, she realized a successful cooperation with University of Helsinki in Finland and the National Institute Ljubljana in Slovenia. The cooperation involves solid-state batteries and solar cells on the basis of metal oxides, especially nanostructured TiO2. In 1992 Dr. Turković founded interdisciplinary group of chemists and physicists at Institute "Ruđer Bošković". They were gathered around the project: "Research and development of nanocrystalline electrochemical solar cell." Today these scientists are engaged in publishing a number of papers in the field of nanostructured materials. Dr. Turković is a member of the International Society for Solid-State Ionics, the Association of Fulbright students, the Vacuum society of Croatia, the Croatian Physical Society, the Crystallographic Union of Croatia and the Electoral College of Nanometer Structures Division of International Union of Vacuum Science, Techniques and Applications. Additionally, she was the leader of the first Croatian group to work at synchrotron light source ELETTRA in Trieste, Italy in March 1997.
Regarding her personal life, Dr. Turković was married to David Lee Fox, but
is now divorced. The two of them had a son together, Nikola Dean, born in 1978.
Her hobbies are aerobic, poetry, painting and caring for cactuses. Her son Nikola
is a student in Computer Sciences, a classical guitar player and a DJ who plays
drum and bass music.