Emina Tahirović and Amina Tucak-Smajić the recipients of 2022 “Vera Šnajder” Award

Bosnia & Herzegovina Futures Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of the 2022 “Vera Šnajder” Award are Emina Tahirović, an Informational technologies student, and Amina Tucak-Smajić, a Ph.D. Pharmacy student. Emina and Amina received the awards in the ceremony, which was a part of the first day of the Futures Leaders Summit.

About the award

The Vera Šnajder award honors the legacy of Vera Šnajder, the first female mathematician of Bosnia & Herzegovina and the first female dean in the former Yugoslavia. For many, Vera is considered Bosnia’s Marie Curie. 

The foundation established the award and will be presented annually as a travel grant (up to 5000 BAM) to an outstanding natural/technical sciences student in Bosnia & Herzegovina (undergraduate, master's, or Ph.D.).  The initiative for the award arose from the desire to support the scientific and research heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina and give adequate recognition to its pioneers in education, science, and technology. 

Her life philosophy and work are the foundation of what the BH Futures Foundation is doing today. Like prof. Šnajder, we are actively working to shape the next generation of change-makers in our society. With this award, the focus is on students of natural and technical sciences. Following Vera’s steps, who always returned to her home country after educational visits abroad, we enable our students to build their personal and professional capacities in the knowledge and skills that our people acquire at the world's most prestigious universities, companies, and laboratories.

Recipients of the award

As this is the second year of giving the “Vera Šnajder” Award to the most extraordinary female researchers, the selection was challenging. We had great candidates who applied for support to be participants in some of the world-class conferences.

This year’s winners were selected by a 13-member jury consisting of academics and professionals of B&H origin from around the world, as well as prof. Dragan Huterer, grandson of Vera Šnajder and prof. and academic Mirjana Vuković, one of prof. Šnajder’s students. 

Here are a few words from our recipients!

“Being chosen as the winner of the Vera Šnajder Award is a great honor for me. I look forward to the opportunity to increase my contribution to science in BiH and continue my professional growth. This award will open many doors for me, and I will try to repay it”, said Emina Tahirović, the winner of the 2022 “Vera Šnajder” Award.

“This award will open many doors for me, and as a member of the academic community of the University of Sarajevo and a doctoral student at the Faculty of Pharmacy, I am extremely honored and pleased to receive an award named after the respected professor Vera Šnajder. I hope that my academic path, like the professor's, will be accompanied by scientific and professional achievements, and I will do my best to invest the acquired knowledge and skills from abroad in the development of this scientific field in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, said Amina Tucak-Smajić, the winner of the 2022 “Vera Šnajder” Award.