Maja Celeska, Macedonia

Curriculum Vitae

Maja Celeska is currently working as Teaching and Research Assistant at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. After completing her Bachelor of Science degree in 2012, Maja accepted a position as a Teaching and Research Associate for laboratory exercises at the Institute for Electrical Machines, Transformers and Apparatus. During that time, she enrolled in master studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies, namely the Renewable Energy Sources- study programme. She focused in the usage of the wind energy in the most wind energy yielded location and she did her Master thesis on "Development of methodology for optimization of wind fields layout in terms of the applied generators and turbines" in 2014. After that she started working as a Teaching and Research Assistant at the same faculty, teaching courses for students in the area of Renewable energy sources, Wind generator systems, Electrical Machines and Transformers, Electromechanical energy conversion, Electromechanical devices and systems and Basics of electric circuits. In 2014 she enrolled in the first year of doctoral studies at the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius. Currently, she is working on her doctoral thesis, which is pioneering work in the field of development of non-commercial algorithms for optimizing the wind turbine scheduling in conditions of integer and continuous input data. Up to now she has published over ten research papers in the field of her interest and participated in four international research projects, as well as in the organization of several international and national conferences. She is an active member of IEEE since 2010 (currently at the position- IEEE Young Professionals Macedonia Section-Chair) and in MAKO CIGRE (currently at the position- Secretary of Study Committee A1). In her free time she enjoys informal meetings with her students and folding puzzles.

Reflection

During my doctoral studies, I had the opportunity to accomplish two research stays in Graz. The first had a duration of one month (February 2016). Although, the first stay was time indigent, it was enough to "infect" me and to initiate the second visit (September 2017-January 2018).
My scientific field of interest are wind farms optimizing the arrangement of wind turbines, thus maximizing the energy yields. In my home country, I was completely limited in my research with almost no practical work and very scarce access to "state of the art" research papers and literature. Also, I was stretched among different obligations and imposed to administrative duties, so I lost the passion for research and the aspiration for solving problems.
Opposite to that situation, from the first day of my stay in Graz, more precisely at Graz University of Technology, I was faced with invaluable conditions and resources for work. I rediscovered my enthusiasm and gained new, higher horizons for my scientific work. Every contact I had with my colleagues and researches from my area of interest, contributed in improving my work, my skills and my personality. I became more precise, completely dedicated to my work and well organized. I especially appreciate every moment of cooperation with my mentor, professor Lothar Fickert, who gave me directions and helped me finalize my doctoral thesis with the topic "Method improving for wind farm layout optimization by application of evolutional algorithms". This cooperation is continued in the future via a bilateral project among the Republic of Macedonia and Austria.
Above all professional achievements and satisfactions I've reached thanks to my scientific stay in Graz, the invaluable advantages are the lifetime friendships which I acquired and every free moment spent in Graz.