Prof. dr. Barbara Bajd is a biologist and teacher. Until her retirement, she
taught at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, and before that she was
employed at the Institute for Human Biology of the Medical Faculty of the
University of Ljubljana. In 1994, she was appointed Assistant Professor,
and in 1999 Associate Professor. She taught several subjects – general bi-
ology, physiology of food, human biology and anatomy, and methodology
of teaching biology. She also taught some of these subjects at the Uni-
versity of Primorska (2003-06). From 1995 she lectured at the Faculty of
Arts of the University of Ljubljana. In 37 years of working in education, she
wrote an extremely rich opus of original educational books about natural
science, and regularly participated in numerous professional improvement
seminars for educators and teachers. She was the first in Slovenia to write
so-called biological keys – educational booklets which enable independ-
ent learning and acquaintance with characteristics of organisms. The first
book was published in 1996, and by 2021 more than 20 titles had been
published. The collection is special for Slovenia, since it is the only educa-
tional material of this kind and is indispensable in learning natural sciences
from a young age. Some books have also been translated into English and
Croatian. In addition to these books, Hart Publishing has brought out an-
other collection called Utripi sveta (The Beats of the World), in which 10
titles have been published. For years she has been producing materials to
help pupils prepare for the Proteus Competition in biology. Together with
colleagues, in 1998 she received an award of the Republic of Slovenia for
education, and in 2004 she was given a golden plaque by the University
of Ljubljana. In 2017, she received the award of Communicator of the Year
presented by the Scientific Foundation SAZU.