Smilja Mučibabić

Smilja Mučibabić was born in Mostar, 14 September 1912, where she acquired elementary and high school education. From 1930 until 1934 she studied biology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. Mostar was then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Before the World War II she was professor in Veliko Gradište, and then in Sremski Karlovci. As a member of a group of pro-communist activists, she was arrested and taken to the German camp Jankomir near Zagreb, and later to the prison on the Savska cesta where she was detained until the end of the war 1945.

In the first after the war days, Smilja Mučibabić returned to Krapina and worked ina high school until the end of the school 1945/1946 . She was transferred to the Teacher School in Mostar.[4] The following year, as an experienced professional, she was appointed director of this gymnasium. Her successful management of the Gymnasium and her care for the improvement of teaching was noted, and she got numerous awards and prizes.

In autumn 1949 she became professor Higher Pedagogical School in Sarajevo. She worked there until the founding of the Department of Biology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo (1954). Then she was sent to the Zoological Institute of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in Belgrade. For two years she worked for the opening and launching of the newly established chair for biology in Sarajevo.

She got a British Council scholarship to the University of Cambridge. for two years, She worked on a PhD doctoral dissertation in the protozoological ecology. Smilja Mučibabić was exceptionally allowed to defending doctoral thesis after two years.[5][6][7]