Project Team

Project Team INTERBA Team Prof. Dr. Fatmir MEMAJ INTERBA Project Manager E-mail: fatmirmemaj@feut.edu.al Prof. Memaj (1962) is a full professor

Project Team

INTERBA Team

Prof. Dr. Fatmir MEMAJ

INTERBA Project Manager

E-mail: fatmirmemaj@feut.edu.al

Prof. Memaj (1962) is a full professor at Faculty of Economy, University of Tirana since 2007.  He has been and currently is Deputy dean (2003-2016 and 2020-) covering international project management, Standards and Quality assurance. He is graduated Bachelor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Tirana, (1985), PhD (November 1996).

His research interest include: statistics, demography, research methods and techniques, higher education development and socio-economic development focused on Balkan countries. He is Executive Director of the Albanian Social Economic Think Tank.

Prof. Memaj is a member of the International Association for Questionnaire Studies – IASS (2000), member of the Association of Balkan Statisticians (2000) and member of the European Association of International Education – EAIE, (2011).

During the period 1992-1993 he has been deputy minister of defense, covering economic problems and also, he has been and currently is contributing as consultant of several international and local companies, Albanian public administration agencies and part time adviser at some Albanian ministries.

He has over 35 years of experience in higher education institutions and is author and co-author in 6 monographs, 5 book translations, more than 60 articles, more than 100 conference papers and over 100 research projects, being researcher, partner and local team coordinator.

Dr. George Dafoulas

G.Dafoulas@mdx.ac.uk;

Middlesex University London

Dr George Dafoulas (Associate Professor / Director of Programmes) – George has managed, led and participated in more than twenty research projects since he joined Middlesex in 2004. His research is driven by developments in the intersection of Information Systems and Human Computer Interaction. More specifically he is interested in the investigation of human aspects in information systems development, effects of computer supported cooperative work in software engineering, and computer mediated communication. He has managed several projects relevant to the this project including a DTI funded knowledge transfer project, various projects funded by JISC and several Erasmus+ CBHE projects. He is the co-author of six books and learning guides while he has participated and managed projects funded under EU frameworks, Erasmus+, NSF, Socrates, Minerva, Tempus, AUNP, ERDF, EPSRC, ESRC, DTI and industrial partners. He is currently leading. He is currently involved with six Erasmus+ projects and one British Council programme.

Prof. Dr. Giorgio Giacinto

giacinto@unica.it

Universita Degli Studi di Cagliari

Giorgio Giacinto, is Full Professor of computer engineering at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Since 1995 he joined the research group on Pattern Recognition and Applications of the Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Cagliari, Italy (http://pralab.diee.unica.it), in which he leads the Cybersecurity unit. The main contributions of Giorgio Giacinto are in the field of machine learning for cybersecurity, in particular on malware detection and classification, Android security, and adversarial machine learning. Giorgio Giacinto is the coordinator of the Erasmus+ CBHE project FORC – Pathway in Forensic Computing (2016-2019), and he is the reference person for UniCA for the PENS project. He has been involved either as the coordinator, or as a member of the technical management board, both in research projects at the national and European level, and in Erasmus projects. He regularly participates to international scientific conferences and workshop as a program committee member, and he has been invited to give seminars and lectures in different European countries either through the Erasmus program or by invitation through local “visiting professor” programs. He acts as the academic coordinator of international student mobility for the Faculty of Engineering and Architectures. He is also the coordinator of the MSc in Computer Engineering, Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence, of which he directed and coordinated the design. Giorgio Giacinto is author of more than 150 scientific papers, whose details can be found on his Google Scholar page. He is a senior member of both the IEEE and ACM. He is Co-Founder & Security Chief Scientist at Pluribus One, a spin-off company of the University of Cagliari.

Dorothea Urban

dorothea.urban@cesie.org

CESIE

Since 2013, Dorothea Urban has been working as Project Manager of International Cooperation Projects (technical assistance and evaluation projects in developing countries, funded by EuropeAid and GIZ) and of European projects (Erasmus+), first at a German consultancy company, then at CESIE. She has acquired knowledge in various fields: entrepreneurship and innovation promotion for regional organization, youth work (including prevention of radicalization of young people), capacity building and training (including training of trainers for tourism companies). She is familiar with various funding schemes, including Erasmus+ (Key Action 2 and 3), Daphne, EuropeAid (Grants and Tenders), and is able to develop and contribute actively to proposals of these funding programmes. Likewise, she has good reporting abilities (both financial and technical reports). Further, she has good knowledge in dissemination and communication activities for projects as well as in quality assurance methods. Currently, she coordinates CESIE’s tender office, including development of the organisation’s strategy in the field of European and international tenders; she supports networking and proposal development of international cooperation projects (EuropeAid grants) and collaborates in Capacity Building for Higher Education projects of CESIE’s Higher Education and Research Unit.

Jelena Mazaj (F)

Coordinator of Higher Education and Research Unit, CESIE.

Over 15 years of her professional experience combines qualitative and quantitative research, administrative work, training, and consultancies on capacity building and knowledge management for Higher Education Institutions, Research organizations, and the third sector. Her expertise in the educational sector covers responsibilities as a lecturer, international relations officer, project coordinator, and local expert for study/mobility/internationalization projects. She is a member of Società Italiana di Management, International Sustainable Development Research Society, Responsible Research and Innovation (RRING) community, and others. Moreover, she is an author/co-author of over 12 scientific publications and contributor to more than 15 project deliverables in Horizon2020 and Erasmus+ programmes.

Dr. Ketrina Çabiri Mijo

ketrina.cabiri@uet.edu.al

European University of Tirana

Dr. Ketrina Çabiri Mijo for more than 9 years now Ketrina has been working at the Office for Project Development and Partnerships at the European University of Tirana (UET) and currently she is the Director for Projects and International Relations in UET. Ketrina has been working as an expert of European Research Programs in the Agency for Research, Technology and Innovation in the Council of Ministers in Albania. She has an extensive experience in project writing and management, while she has been involved in several EU Projects such as Tempus, IPA CBC/Interreg MED/Balkan Med, LLP/Jean Monnet, ERASMUS +, ESPON and other national and international donors like World Bank and British Council, Open Society Foundation, Friedrich Ebert Sifting, OSCE, UNWOMEN, GDN (Global Research Competition), etc.  Ketrina completed her PHD on Corruption and Decision Making in Public Procurement at the European University of Tirana, followed by a fellowship at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Essex University (2016) supported by the Civil Society Scholar Award and a research stay at the Department of Political Sciences and Sociology, University of Salzburg as a Sigma Agile Fellow (2015-2016). Ketrina received a master’s degree in European Politics from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom in 2009. Ketrina has been a research Fellow at TRAIN programme ‘Fostering Policy Dialogue in the Western Balkans’ lead by German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in 2017. Ketrina has published in national and international journals and publishing houses, such as Bentham Science Publishers, Kluwer Law International, Oxford University Press, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education (Emerald Publishing), etc.

Armend Berisha

armendberisha@universum-ks.org

Universum College

Armend holds a Master of Arts on Higher Education Policy & Administration from the University of Iowa. He completed his BA on Political Science at the University of Prishtina and another BA on Business and Administration at Universum College. Armend is a director of Quality Assurance Office at Universum College and is a leader of the team for projects and international cooperation. Armend currently is also lecturing a Student Success seminar at the Universum College. Armend has an extensive experience on project implementation which were mainly funded by USAID and EU Commission and has a three year experience on senior management by being a Campus Coordinator of Universum College in Gjakova. Armend is primarily interested on increasing student success in higher education and measuring the effectiveness of innovative and unconventional pedagogical methods. His role in the project will be to develop metrics and indicators that measure the impact of the intervention on institutional-wide student retention and success. Moreover, he will establish the test centre within the institution and will assist the Program Higher Educational Institute to carry on the activities.

Prof. Asoc. Dr. Isak Shabani

E-mail: isak.shabani@uni-pr.edu

Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”,

Isak Shabani has 18 years of experience in university teaching and research. He has a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering and is author of several publications in international journals and conferences. He is an Associate Professor. He served for 12 years as Director of Information technology at UP.  His research interests include Distributed systems, Web services, HCI, Systems design and ICT in Education. He was the author and leader of the most important project at the UP “Digitalization of academic and administrative services”. For four years, he was the representative of the UP in the European Distance and e-Learning Network. Coordinator and member of several science and education capacity-building projects under Tempus, Erasmus+ framework and Horizon 2020. He serves as a reviewer for international scientific journals.

Prof. Dr. Elvis Ahmetovic

elvis.ahmetovic@untz.ba

University of Tuzla

Elvis Ahmetović works as a Full Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Tuzla. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at the same University in 1998 and 2002, and PhD. in Process Engineering in 2005. He was a Vice-Dean for Education at the Faculty of Technology in 2007-2008. In 2008/2009, he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA (U.S.). In 2011/2012 he was awarded with JoinEU SEE scholarship for ten-month research at the University of Maribor (Slovenia). He was also awarded in 2011 and 2019 with the DAAD and in 2012 with the EM2-STEM scholarships and he visited the Institute for Applied Material Flow Management (IfaS) (Germany), the University of Bremen (Laboratory of Process Systems Engineering), and the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland). He participated in the Erasmus+ programme-staff mobility for teaching and training and delivered lectures at the Lappeenranta University of Technology (Finland) in 2016, and the Pamukkale University (Turkey) in 2018 and 2019.

Prof. Dr. Maja Kazazic

Maja.Kazazic@unmo.ba

Dzemal Bijedic University of Mostar

Maja Kazazic, Vice-Rector for international relations, earned her master’s degree in Biochemistry from the Faculty of mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Oslo in 2002. In 2007 she defended her Ph.D. thesis in the field of biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. Today, she works as an associate professor at the Dzemal Bijedic University of Mostar where she is involved in teaching at bachelor and master level. She is also active researcher in the field of biochemistry and has experience in development and coordination of research projects. Maja Kazazic is a member of the Association of biochemists and molecular biologists in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Mirsada Behram

Mirsada.Behram@unmo.ba

Dzemal Bijedic University of Mostar

Mirsada Behram is graduated jurist who passed the state exams for administrative clerks and volunteers before the Federal Commission. In 2015., she successfully defended her MA final paper “Conditions of the admissibility of the procedure before the European Court of Human Rights” and obtained a degree of LL.M. Since November 2008, she works as International Relations Officer at Dzemal Bijedic University of Mostar.  She completed ABA CEELI training courses in Project Cycle Management and Fundraising.  She was a member of the Organizing Committee of Second Summer school „Statistical Methods for the Service Quality Measurement „and member of the consortium on TEMPUS project „Equal opportunities for students with special needs in higher education“. In 2015, she received a Scroll of Honour of Dzemal Bijedic University of Mostar on the occasion of the Day of University for her efforts and exceptional contribution in the development of the University as well as the recognition of the University’s reputation in the country and abroad.

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Blecker

email@thorsten-blecker.de

Hamburg University of Technology

Full professor at the Institute for Business Logistics and General Management at TUHH. He holds a Master degree in business administration (with honors) and a PhD (summa cum laude) from the University of Duisburg, Germany.He finished his habilitation thesis in 2004 in Klagenfurt, Austria. He is co-editor and author of many books such as Operations Management in Virtual Organizations, Enterprise without Boundaries, Competitive Strategies, and web-based Manufacturing. Main research interests are business logistics and supply chain management, operations management, industrial information systems, internet-based manufacturing, and strategic management. He has participated as partner in the Tempus project WBCInno (2012) and successfully managed the Tempus project PARENIS (2010) and the Erasmus+ project MILETUS (2016-2019).

Olena Soltmann

olena.soltmann@tuhh.de

Hamburg University of Technology

Research associate at the Institute of Business Logistics and General Management at TUHH. She holds a diploma degree in radio physics from the Kharkiv State University, Ukraine. She has more than fifteen years of work experience in manufacturing companies and has been involved in several research and industrial projects dealing with production and strategic management. She has contributed to the managing the Erasmus+ project MILETUS (2016-2019).