Dr. Nataša Drvenkarwas born on 19 December 1983 in Zemun, the Republic of Serbia. After graduating from secondary school in Virovitica in 2002 as the best student of her generation,she enrolled in the Faculty of Economics in Osijek, completing her studies on 11 July 2006. She received many awards for academic excellence during her undergraduate studies: she was in the top 5% of her class, ranking 7th among the best final-year students at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek. She was the recipient of the Rector's Award for the academic year 2004/2005, a commendation from the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports for academic achievement in 2004, and the award for outstanding co-operation in 2006 from the Public Institution Kopački rit. At a conference entitled "Investment in Slavonia" organized by the Italian and Croatian chambers of commerce she was awarded the prize for the best thesis. Throughout her studies she was entitled to a scholarship, which she received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then from the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports.
In 2007, she enrolled in the postgraduate specialist study programme "Management of Economic Development" at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek which she completed on 13 January 2009 by defending her thesis entitled "Osijek-Baranja County Industry in the context of Croatia’s accession to the European Union", and earned the academic degree of university specialist in economics. She then enrolled in the postgraduate doctoral study programme in Management at the same faculty. On 9 November 2012 she defended her doctoral thesis entitled "Reindustrialisation as a basis for the development strategy of Pannonian Croatia" and obtained the academic degree of doctor of social sciences in the scientific field of economics. In 2011, she completed the programme on pedagogical, psychological, didactic and methodical education at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Osijek, which is a requirement for working in the educational process. Her foreign languages are English and German.
She started working as a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek on 9 November 2012, and became a senior teaching assistant as of 1 January 2013. On 10 September 2013, she was appointed to the academic rank of Assistant Professor. Her main areas of interest include economic growth and development, industrial policy and regional policy. She teaches the following courses: Economy of Croatia, Regional Policy and Development, Regional Economics, Industrial Economics and Policy, and Globalization and Management. Her researcher ID number is 292945. As of 5 November 2011, she partook in a research project of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports entitled "Gaining Economic Prosperity by Strengthening Regional Competitiveness" (Project Code: 010-0101195-0866) led by Dr. Đula Borozan of the Faculty of Economics in Osijek. From September 2015 to May 2016, she participated as a researcher in an EU project "Adopting CQF (Croatian Qualifications Framework) principles in higher education institutions in the field of economics – ECONQUAL" (HR.3.1.15-0005) working on the project activity "Identifying Groups of Learning Outcomes for economics courses in the undergraduate and graduate study programmes". She was the co-ordinator of a research project entitled "The learning regions - regional economic transformation", which was approved by the J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek in the academic year 2014/2015. She has co-authored a scientific paper presenting the results of this project. She has published 20 scientific papers of a1 category and 7 scientific papers of a2 category in the scientific field of economics. She has been actively participating in international conferences and symposia. In the academic year 2010 – 2011, she was a teaching assistant for six weeks to Dr. Dirk Wentzel at the Pforzheim University of Applied Science in Pforzheim, Germany, during summer courses organised for American students.
From the academic year 2013/2014 to the academic year 2015/2016, she was the co-ordinator of cooperation with the Croatian Employers' Association and the chairperson of the Commission for student traineeships at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek. As the scope of the Commission's activities expanded, since academic year 2016/2017 she has been the chairperson of the Commission for economic cooperation. She has built strong professional relationships with academic and business communities through a number of joint projects (science popularisation conferences and meetings: Science meets Economics, Scientific Forum, round tables/panel discussions). From 2009 to 2012, she was a member of the Faculty Council as a representative of teaching assistants and postgraduate students. She maintains close cooperation with the Student Union, the Croatian Economic Association (member of the organizing committee of the Traditional conferences), the Croatian Employers’ Association through: 1) PUMA training program involving the most involved and promising students 2) student traineeships in cooperation with employers of five Slavonian counties, and the Croatian Chamber of Commerce and regional development agencies of the Slavonian county.