Maja Turnsek

Background

About Maja Turnsek

I cannot research just one topic or even stick to just one discipline. I used to think that was a weakness, now I see a silver lining in this. I will never be the best in one thing, but combining different topics (and people), well, that is what makes it fun and often a winning combination. I finished my PhD in media and communications. What stuck with me from my PhD was political economy on platforms and a core belief in public deliberation as the holy grail of communication. Plus, a highly critical approach to everything – for which I really thank my supervisors prof Slavko Splichal and prof Nicholas W. Jankowski. After a few years of early-stage research at University of Ljubljana I wanted to try my luck outside of academia and co-founded an aquaponics startup. We wanted to make a green difference in the way our food is produced and were amongst the first in Europe to set-up a commercial-scale system. But we had to lick our wounds after realizing we won’t make it. I wrote a few papers on the aquaponics market, probably just as a therapeutical answer to “what the heck happened?” I returned to academia with a position at the Faculty of Tourism, University of Maribor. I love the freedom of thought this allows me. Tourism is a great pool for incredibly diverse topics: from storytelling and humor to geothermal energy and aquaponics and even home gardening, to climate change, the power of digital platforms and social justice. I mix all of this in my everyday soup of thought, and I just love it. Oddly enough, I like to write grant proposals which ended up being quite a useful skill. I do hate the competitive nature of academic life though. Because competition so often brings out our inner assholes. So, I decided to cooperate just with those academics who are kind and do not let their own impostor syndrome (we all have that jerk in us!) kill the collaborative child in them – the one that still knows how to have fun when playing as a team. And I love to laugh. Ideally then, LinkedIn please connect me with kind people who have fun while researching and can laugh their pants off at times. All the time doing so while staying true to critical thought and values. Now let's wait and see if LinkedIn manages to crack an algorithm for this type of a request :)