Research group

Assoc. Prof. Marina Merkaš, Ph.D. has been working at the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia since 2014. She completed her PhD in 2012 at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, with the thesis "The Role of the Family in the Development of Social Competence in Adolescents". Her research focuses on the development and well-being of children and adolescents, with an emphasis on parenting, family dynamics, and the impact of digital technology. She has worked in education, healthcare, and research institutes, furthering her studies in Belgium, where she completed the first level of cognitive-behavioral therapy. To date, she has participated in 17 projects, including leading two, and has published over 30 scientific papers. Among other activities, she has served as the chair of the program committee for a conference, editor of a journal, member of the Senate of the Catholic University of Croatia, and reviewer for over 20 journals. She is active in teaching, mentoring, and international professional organizations such as EARA and SRA. Recently, she has been leading the HKS research team on the "BrAIn" project, participating in an international study on the use of smartphones, sleep, and mood, funded by EADP, as well as in the national DigiLitA project and the COST action YouthDMH.

Prof. Danijel Labaš, Ph.D., is a full professor with tenure and the head of the University Department of Communication Studies at the Catholic University of Croatia. He is the author, co-author, and editor of numerous books, proceedings, manuals, and educational brochures in the fields of communication studies, media ethics, media pedagogy, media education, and media literacy. In addition to his role at the Catholic University of Croatia, he teaches at the integrated study program of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, the specialist public relations program at the Faculty of Political Sciences, and the doctoral study program at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb. 

He has published over 100 scientific papers, dozens of professional articles, and hundreds of publicist and journalistic pieces in communication studies, information and communication sciences, film and literary criticism, and book reviews in monographs, journals, monthly publications, and weekly magazines. He is particularly dedicated to the topics of media education and media literacy for children, youth, teachers, and parents. Prof. Labaš has participated in more than 100 academic symposia, presenting at over 50 national and international conferences, as well as more than 100 professional gatherings and roundtables. 

He is an associate member of the Scientific Council for Education and Schooling at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU) and the Accreditation Council of the Agency for Science and Higher Education. He serves as the president of the Expert Committee for Social Sciences – Information and Communication Sciences. He has been a member of several advisory bodies, including the Commission for Science Popularization Programs of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia, the National Ethics Commission for Research Involving Children of the Council for Children, and the Commission for the Assessment and Selection of Programs for Improving the Quality of Life and Protecting the Rights of the Elderly of the Ministry of Labor, Pension System, Family, and Social Policy. Prof. Labaš is also a member of Matica hrvatska and its Media Department, as well as the Croatian Association of Catholic Journalists, where he served as vice president from 1997 to 2000. He is the president of the “Society for Communication and Media Culture”.

CRORIS profile: https://www.croris.hr/osobe/profil/13106 

Assoc. Prof. Lana Ciboci Perša, Ph.D., is employed at the University Department of Communication Studies at the Catholic University of Croatia. She also lectures as an external associate at the Faculty of Croatian Studies and the Faculty of Teacher Education at the University of Zagreb. She serves as the Vice President of the Society for Communication and Media Culture, a civil society organization dedicated to informal media education for children, parents, teachers, and professional associates. For two years, she held the position of President of the Social Sciences Committee of the Council of Polytechnics and Colleges of the Republic of Croatia. 

As a committee member, she participated in the initial accreditation and reaccreditation processes of several domestic and international higher education institutions. She is an associate member of the Scientific Council for Education and Schooling of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Lana is the editor of several books and conference proceedings and served as the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Communication Management Review for five years. Additionally, she chaired the Organizational Committee and co-chaired the Program Committee of the scientific conference Communication Management Forum. She is the national coordinator of the international research project EU Kids Online. 

To date, she has participated in over 50 scientific and professional projects, including notable ones such as A Systemic Approach to Social Media and Pre-adolescents through Thinking Skills Education (Erasmus+), TeaMLit: Teacher Education in Digital and Media Literacy (Media and Information Fund), Algowatch (Creative Europe), SMaRT EU – Social Media Resilience Toolkit (DG Connect), and MOV. Media Literacy Matters (ESF). Currently, she leads a major project titled Critical Analysis of Disinformation on Religious Topics (KAT), funded by the Agency for Electronic Media and the Ministry of Culture under the NPOO measure "Establishment of Fact-Checking and Public Data Disclosure Systems". Her research and scientific work focus primarily on media literacy, with an emphasis on the relationship between media and children, as well as electronic violence.

Assoc. Prof. Marija Šakić Velić, Ph.D. is employed at the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia. She graduated in Psychology from the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, in 2002. She earned her PhD in 2010 from the University of Zagreb. From 2004 to 2023, she worked at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar in Zagreb, and since 2013, she has also been employed at the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia. Her scientific and research interests focus on developmental psychology and educational psychology, particularly the well-being of children and adolescents in school environments. 

She has participated in the implementation of more than 20 scientific and research projects funded by various sources (e.g., Croatian Science Foundation, Erasmus+, UNICEF, Ministry of Science and Education), co-authored over 20 scientific papers, co-authored six research reports, and has delivered more than 50 presentations at international and domestic scientific and professional conferences.

Ivan Uldrijan was born in 1982 in Virovitica. He grew up in Daruvar, where he completed primary school and general high school. He graduated in 2007 from the Journalism program at the Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, earning the academic title of Bachelor of Journalism. In 2019, he obtained his PhD in Croatian Studies from the postgraduate doctoral program in Croatology, earning a Doctor of Science degree in the interdisciplinary field of Croatology. Since 2015, he has been employed as an assistant, since 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher/senior assistant, and since 2024 as an assistant professor at the Department of Communication at the Catholic University of Croatia. 

His research interests include media, journalism, media pedagogy, and media didactics. Since 2008, he has been an external collaborator at the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, and from 2013 to 2017, he also collaborated with the nursing program at the Zagreb University of Applied Sciences. He has participated in teaching several courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has published ten scientific papers, participated as a researcher in a scientific project and several professional projects, and attended about ten scientific conferences and around eighty professional gatherings, round tables, forums, and various science popularization programs. His professional and popular articles have been published in several books and manuals. 

He has edited two high school textbooks in the field of robotics. He gained journalistic experience in both print and electronic media. During his journalism career, he has had hundreds of journalistic texts and other contributions published. He is currently the editor-in-chief and editorial mentor of the student magazine "Kompas" at the Catholic University of Croatia, which he helped establish. He is a member of the Society for Communication and Media Culture (lecturer in the "Children of Media" project), the Croatian Society of Catholic Journalists, and Matica Hrvatska.

Jeronim Dorotić currently works as an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of Croatia. He earned his doctorate in 2019 from the interdisciplinary postgraduate university doctoral program “European Studies” at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek. In 2006, he obtained the professional title of Bachelor of Economics in Management (mag. oec.) from Rochester Institute of Technology Croatia (RIT/ACMT) in Dubrovnik. In 2009, he earned the academic title of University Specialist in European Studies (univ. spec. st. eur.) from the postgraduate specialist program “European Studies” at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb. That same year, he also completed a Master of Arts degree in “Analyzing Europe” (European Studies) at Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. His scientific interests and research, reflected in his academic publications, focus on the study of interdisciplinary topics related to EU public policies (e.g., cultural, landscape, and island policies of the EU) and their implications at the member-state level. He also explores European identity, local cultural policies, and the concepts of well-being and sustainable development.

Assist. Prof. Josip Ježovita, Ph.D., is employed at the Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of Croatia, where he teaches a range of methodological and statistical courses at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral sociology programs. He graduated from the Croatian Studies at the University of Zagreb in 2013 and worked as an external associate in the sociology program there from 2013 to 2019. In 2014, he was also employed at the Croatian Employment Service in the Department of Analytics, Statistics, and Informatics. He earned his doctorate in 2020 from the doctoral program in sociology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, defending his dissertation on "Changes in the Methodological Characteristics of Research Papers in Croatian Sociology". His research interests focus on the sociology of science and the application of new methods and data sources in the process of data collection and analysis. He has published over 20 scientific papers, participated in numerous academic conferences, and actively contributed to eight national and international projects, including BrAIn and the European Values Study.

Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, and earned her doctorate in the field of social sciences, specializing in sociology, at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. During her doctoral studies, she advanced her education at the Institute for Theatre, Film, and Media at the Faculty of Philosophy and Culture, University of Vienna. 

She also led a two-year postdoctoral research project under the CREATE program at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas - Angelicum in Rome, funded by the Talents for Good scholarship from the Porticus organization. Her areas of scientific interest include qualitative research methods, the sociology of culture and the arts, the sociology of youth and vulnerable social groups in the context of sustainable development, and media sociology. She publishes scientific books and articles and actively participates in scientific conferences, symposiums, roundtables, and workshops in Croatia and abroad, contributing through presentations, moderation, or membership in organizing committees. 

As a principal investigator, she has led several scientific projects in Zagreb and Rome and actively participates in COST actions and Erasmus+ mobility programs. She is the recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Catholic University of Croatia for the academic year 2023/2024.

Assist. Prof. Odilon Gbènoukpo Singbo, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Department of Theology at the Catholic University of Croatia. As a teacher, he participates in bioethics courses at several university departments. He earned his PhD in 2019 at the Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, with the thesis "The Theological-Bioethical Evaluation of Transhumanist Anthropology." His research interests include bioethics, transhumanism, technology ethics, and artificial intelligence ethics. From 2016 to 2021, he served as the university chaplain at the Catholic University of Croatia. 

Since 2017, he has participated in teaching several courses at the Catholic University of Croatia: The Person in the Face of Contemporary Technological Advancement, The Nursing Profession in the Era of Technological-Biomedical Enhancement of Humanity, Introduction to Bioethics, and Theological Aspects of Dying and Death. He mentors several graduate theses and is a member of committees for defending and evaluating graduate theses. He has participated in numerous international and domestic scientific conferences. Since 2017, he has been a member of the Ethics Committee of the Catholic University of Croatia, becoming its president in 2024. He is also a member of the Ethics Committee at the Clinical Hospital Center Sisters of Mercy in Zagreb. He is the head of the Ethics Chamber at the Center for the Study of Science and Religion Relations at the Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Zagreb. 

He is a member of the Ethics Commission at COMECE (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union). Since 2024, he has been a member of the BrAIn Project – Supporting the Application of Digital Technologies in Education and the project "How LLMs Modulate Our Collective Memory and Its Ethical Implications." He has authored around twenty scientific and professional papers and five books: The Storm Will Pass: With Christ Through the Lenten Everyday (2012), Gospel Crumbs for Inner Ecology (2020), Theological-Bioethical Evaluation of Transhumanist Anthropology (2021), The Defeat of Humanity: Church Doctrine in the Era of Nuclear Weapons (2023), La théologie africaine de l’interculturalité. Recherches socio-théologiques (2023).

Assist. Prof. Petra Palić, Ph.D., has been employed at the Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of Croatia since 2019. She completed her PhD in 2018 at the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb, with the thesis "Modeling the Transmission of Volatility and the Spread of Infections Through Financial Markets". She obtained her Master's degree in Finance in 2013 from the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb, and a year later, she earned a Master's degree in Social Policy from the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. 

From 2015 to 2019, she worked as an assistant/researcher on a project funded by the Croatian Science Foundation (Economic, Statistical, and Political Aspects of the Government Bond Market – SOBOM) at the Economic Institute of Zagreb, where she currently holds the status of an external collaborator. Her research interests include macroeconomics, international finance, monetary policy, fiscal policy, and social policy. She is the course coordinator and lecturer for the following courses at the Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of Croatia: Introduction to Microeconomics, Introduction to Macroeconomics, Introduction to Economics, Public Policies II: Social Policy, Public Choice Theory, Society and Corruption, Industrial Sectors in the Republic of Croatia, and Innovation Management and Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, she has been an external collaborator at the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb, since 2016, where she taught courses on Monetary Policy, Public Finances, and the Tax System of Croatia at the Department of Finance. 

She also worked as an external collaborator at the Department of Economic Theory and the Department of Statistics. She has published over 40 scientific and professional papers, both as an author and co-author, and has presented at numerous domestic and international conferences. Furthermore, she has participated in the implementation of 12 projects funded by various sources (Croatian Science Foundation, Economic Institute Zagreb, Ministry of Demography and Immigration, European Union Funds, COST). She is a member of the Scientific Society of Economists and the Croatian Statistical Society.

Assist. Prof. Snježana Mališa, Ph.D., has been employed at the University Department of Communication Studies at the Catholic University of Croatia since 2014. She earned her doctorate at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome, focusing on teaching in complex environments. Her research interests lie in pedagogy, media, education, and lifelong teacher learning. She participated in the BAQUAL project (Better Academic Qualifications through Quality Assurance), contributing to the development of programs for enhancing teacher competencies in higher education. 

Currently, she is involved in two projects at the Catholic University of Croatia: BrAIn and KAT (Critical Analysis of Religious Disinformation). To date, she has independently or collaboratively published over 15 works in journals and conference proceedings. She is also a member of the working group for education and culture within the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), representing the Croatian Bishops' Conference (HBK).

Suzana Peran, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication at the Catholic University of Croatia, where she teaches a group of journalism courses. She completed her PhD with the thesis "The Image of the Family in Croatian Media – Media and Catholic Doctrine on the Family." She participated in the research project "The Impact of Media on the Croatian Family" at the Communication Studies Department of the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb. She is also a collaborator on the project "Critical Analysis of Disinformation on Religious Topics" (KAT). She has participated in numerous domestic and international scientific conferences and has led communication and media training programs. Her research areas include family and media, children and media, media credibility, the portrayal of women in the media, religious topics in the media, and media literacy. 

She is a lecturer at the University Center for Protestant Theology at the University of Zagreb. She was the editor-in-chief of the Information Catholic Agency and the vice-president of the World Union of Catholic News Agencies based in Geneva. She is the president of the Croatian Society of Catholic Journalists and a member of the Society for Communication and Media Culture.

Ana Haramina is a psychologist who earned her doctorate at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome with the dissertation "From Emotional Experience to Emotional Competence: A Study with Primary School Teachers in Croatia". She is currently employed as a senior assistant at the University Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia. 

Previously, she worked for about ten years as a school psychologist in a primary school and briefly at a home for children without adequate parental care under the auspices of Caritas of the Archdiocese of Zagreb. Her areas of scientific interest and professional work include educational psychology, emotional awareness and emotional experience, systemic approaches to understanding family dynamics, and media psychology.

Lana Batinić has been an assistant professor at the University Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia since 2024, where she began working as an assistant in 2012. She earned her doctorate in science at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, in 2019. She has published around ten scientific papers, collaborated on six research projects, and served as the chair of the Organizing Committee for the 4th International Scientific and Professional Conference of the University Department of Psychology, Changing Life Circumstances: Opportunities for Individual and Community Growth, in 2023. 

She has been a lecturer at three international summer schools titled Practicing Resilience. Preparing for Recovery, organized in collaboration with the Nanovic Institute (University of Notre Dame, USA) and the Ukrainian Catholic University. Her scientific research focuses on social psychology, particularly close relationships and partner dynamics. She is a co-founder of the Family Center at the Catholic university of Croatia, established in 2023, and is currently undergoing training in systemic family psychotherapy. She is also a recipient of the award for promoting the catholic identity of the University.

Mario Pandžić enrolled in the undergraduate psychology program in 2007 at the Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, and earned his Master's degree in Psychology in 2013. He completed his internship at the Children's Protection Clinic in Zagreb. Since 2015, he has been employed at the Catholic University of Croatia, currently holding the position of Senior Assistant. He obtained his PhD in 2023 from the doctoral program in Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, with the thesis "Cognitive Aspects of Adolescent Gambling." His research interests focus on social cognition and decision-making. He has published 15 scientific papers and participated in five research projects. He was a member of the organizing committee for four international scientific and professional conferences and has participated in a total of 17 international and domestic scientific and professional events. He has been involved in five research projects. He is a member of the Croatian Psychological Chamber.

Toni Ćosić, Ph.D., has been employed as a senior assistant at the University Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of Croatia since September 2022. Before joining the University, he worked at GfK Croatia – Market Research Center (in the HealthCare sector) and as an external associate at the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography. In addition to his scientific and professional work, he participates in teaching methodological and statistical courses as well as specialized sociology courses in the Sociology, Nursing, and Medicine programs. 

He has collaborated on several scientific and professional projects, most notably the project Computational Model of Demographic Dynamics in the Republic of Croatia – Quantitative Basis for Future Demographic Policies, funded by the Adris Foundation. He has published several scientific and professional papers and presented at conferences both domestically and internationally. His research interests include demography, social research methodology, and medical sociology. He has also served multiple times as a member of the organizational committees for international and national scientific and professional events at the University.

Ana Žulec Ivanković, PhD, focuses her research on the effects of digital technology use, especially social media, on the daily functioning of adolescents. Her research employs advanced data collection and analysis methods, such as using longitudinal data, experience sampling methods, and multilevel modeling. She has collaborated on several scientific and professional projects, participated in numerous domestic and international scientific conferences, and has published 9 scientific papers as a co-author. She is a member of several international organizations dedicated to the study of child and adolescent development (EARA, EADP, SRA, SAA) and serves as the national representative of the Republic of Croatia in the Union of Young Researchers within the European Association for Developmental Psychology.

Matea Bodrožić Selak, mag. psych., has been employed at the University Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia since 2021. She earned her master’s degree in psychology in 2020 from the University of Zadar with her thesis Some Predictors of Nomophobia. During her studies, she served as a teaching assistant at the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. She worked with children with special needs and behavioral issues at the Juraj Bonači Center for Education in Split and volunteered on the project The Pandemic and Me – Psychological Aspects of the Crisis Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in the postgraduate doctoral program in Prevention Science and Disability Studies at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Zagreb. She is also undergoing training in cognitive-behavioral therapy at the Croatian Association for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (HUBIKOT). She has participated in five projects: Digital Technology in the Family: Behavior Patterns and Effects on Child Development, Family and Individual Plans for Using Digital Media – An Interactive Advisory Web Page, Happiness Is Not in Things: The Role of Media, Parents, and Peers in Shaping Materialism in Children, The Pandemic and Me – Psychological Aspects of the Crisis Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Mental Health for All. She has enhanced her expertise by attending summer schools and methodological workshops, received two professional development scholarships, and is a recipient of a scholarship from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Matea has presented more than 25 papers at national and international scientific conferences, including the Annual Conference of Psychologists in Croatia, the 4th International Scientific and Professional Conference of the University Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia, the 10th International Scientific Conference Research in Education and Rehabilitation Sciences (ERFCON), the European Conference on Developmental Psychology (ECDP), and the European Association for Research on Adolescence Conference (EARA). She is a co-author of the Analysis of the Situation of Children and Youth in the Republic of Croatia for the Period 2021–2023, prepared for the Central State Office for Demography and Youth, as well as the monograph of the research-educational project The Pandemic and Me – Psychological Aspects of the Crisis Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, and seven original scientific papers. She is a member of the European Association for Research on Adolescence (EARA) and The International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN).

Lovro Knežević, mag. Soc., born in 1998 in Zagreb, is an assistant at the Department of Sociology of the Catholic University of Croatia. At the same university, he graduated in sociology in 2023 with the topic "How do Zagreb students perceive science?", for which he received the Department's award for the best graduate thesis. Aligned with his thesis, his main areas of interest include the sociology of knowledge, education, and science, which he is currently deepening through doctoral studies in sociology at the Catholic University of Croatia. He began gaining research experience immediately after completing his studies, participating in international projects such as "Creation and Care" and "Lessons from the Past," where he analyzed new lifestyles among youth and vulnerable groups in Croatian society. In addition to these areas of sociology, his work reflects an interest in philosophy, the social teaching of the Church, and the impact of new technologies on society. He brought these interests together in his essay "Can Digital Computers Evangelize? – 'Decoding' ChatGPT with the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church," which won second place in an essay competition organized by the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas "Angelicum" in Rome. In the context of education and digital technologies, he published the paper "Scientific Ethics of Zagreb Students" in Media, Culture, and Public Relations, Vol. 14 No. 2, 2023.