Zdenka Girek, PhD was born in 1978 in Zemun. She graduated at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Agriculture, Department for Field Crops in 2006 with thesis: „Development of haploid wheat embryo after distant crossing”. She enrolled on Doctoral academic studies at the same Faculty and defended doctoral thesis „Induction of sex expression and genetic variability of melon (Cucumis melo L.) in 2013. She has a scientific degree of Research Associate. She has been working at the Institute for Vegetable Crops since 2008 at the Department for Genetics and Vegetable Breeding, as a breeder of Cucurbitaceae. She has been a Head of the Department for Genetics and Vegetable Breeding since 2015.
She published more than 77 scientific papers regarding genetics, plant breeding, vegetable crops, organic production and vegetable species selection. She is the co-author of one internationally registered cabbage variety and one nationally registered cucumber variety. She participated at 13 national and 10 international meetings. She also participated at 6 national and 3 international projects. She represented Serbia at the “Workshop on Agricultural Science and Technology Exchange between China and Central-Eastern European Countries” in 2013 at Beijing (China) and on “ECPGR Workshop for the establishment of a European Evaluation Network (EVA) on vegetable crop” in 2019 at Durres, Albania. She is a member of “Serbian Genetic Society” and “Serbian Association of Plant Breeders and Seed producers”. Scientific field: Cucurbitaceae, selection and breeding by applying conventional methods, genetic resources of vegetable crops, induction of sex expression of melon, analysis of inheritance and determination of good combiners, the use of molecular markers in breeding process (RAPD), statistical methods of data proceeding, AMMI analysis.