Sanja Žaja Vrbica is the associate professor at the Arts and Restoration Department, University of Dubrovnik. Born in 1969 in Dubrovnik, where she completed primary and secondary school. In 1988 she began studying art history and museum studies, at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, where she graduated in 1993. Since 1995 she has worked at the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik, as curator from 1997 and she was promoted to senior curator in 2001.
In 1994 she enrolled in the postgraduate program “Culture of the Eastern Adriatic Coast” at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, which was organized in Dubrovnik, and in 1999 she obtained a MA Degree with the thesis Art Criticism and Exhibitions in Dubrovnik 1876-1978. In 2011 she defended the thesis entitled Marko Rašica at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb.
Since 2005 she works at the University of Dubrovnik as an teaching assistant at the of Arts and Restoration Department, as an assistant professor since 2013 and an associate professor since 2019. The main courses she has been teaching is modern art to the restoration and conservation students, and elective courses to history students and Mass Media students. She achieved international activity by Erasmus mobilities in Poland, Spain, Portugal and Italy and continuous cooperation with various European conservation and restoration studies.
From 2016 to 2019 she was Head of the Arts and Restoration Department and from 2019 Vicerector for study programmes and students at the University of Dubrovnik. In 2021, she was appointed as a member and in 2022 as the head of the National Group for Enhancing the Social Dimension of Higher Education. By decision of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, she was appointed a member of the Youth Council of the Republic of Croatia from 2021 to 2023 as a representative of scientific and educational institutions.
She was a member of the working group founded on the initiative of the City of Dubrovnik and coordinated by the Institute for International Relations IRMO, Zagreb, which in 2014 formulated the current Strategy for the Development of Culture of the City of Dubrovnik 2015 – 2025.
At the University of Dubrovnik, she participated in the working group for the preparation of the Strategic Programme for Scientific Research in the Humanities of the University of Dubrovnik, 2017-2022, accepted in 2018.
In 2017, the Rectors’ Council of the Republic of Croatia appointed her as a member of the Rectorate Commission of the Rectors’ Council for Inter-University Cooperation in the Field of Arts (intra-Croatian Erasmus).
Her academic interests include Croatian and European art of the 19th and 20th centuries and artistic production in Croatia. She has published two books, five book chapters, more than 40 scientific papers and articles for journals, newspapers and proffesional magazines. She has participated in 16 scientific conferences in Croatia and abroad, and was a resercher on the scientific project “Fine Art and Visual Culture of the 19th, 20th and 2st Centuries in Dalmatia” of the Ministry of Education, 2008-2013, headed by professor Vinko Srhoj.
She is the author of 15 monographic, retrospective and collective exhibitions organized in the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik, Art Gallery, Dulčić Gallery, Masle, Politika, Dubrovnik Museums and Dubrovnik Libraries.
Member of the editorial board of the international scientific journal Revista de Museología (RdM), ISSN 1134-0576, and journal Dubrovački horizonti ISSN 0419-7925, and the Croatian Society of Art Historians (DPUH) and Croatian Museum Association (HMD).