The judges for each challenge include FFZG students, primarily pre-service EFL teachers, followed by FFZG faculty relevant to the respective challenge, and finally native speakers and experts in the relevant domain.
Here are our TEC 2027 judges:
FFZG student judges (pre-service EFL teachers)
Kristina Krakić, Nina Pejnović, Ana Domović, Kristina Horki, Nika Roguljić, Korina Rubinić, Martin Stanković, Christian Šilović, Nika Havrle, Lana Blažinić, Greta Mikec, Lucija Humić, Valentina Petra Eterović Buble, Kate Kuko.
FFZG faculty judges
Lada Čale Feldman
Lada Čale Feldman is a Full Professor and Chair of Theatre Studies at the Department for Comparative Literature, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb in Croatia. Her areas of research are theatre and performance studies, and feminist criticism.
Besides her two co-authored and eight authored books in Croatian – the last one, Molièere ponovljen (Molière repeated), was published in 2025 – she also co-edited several special issues of journals and numerous collections, among which in English (with I. Prica and R. Senjković), Fear, Death and Resistance: Croatia 1991-92, 1993, and (with M. Blažević) Misperformance: essays in shifting perspectives, 2014. She is a recipient of six (five national and one international) awards.
Martina Domines
Martina Domines is an Associate Professor in the English Department, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She is the author of William Wordsworth and Romantic Memory (William Wordsworth i romantičko sjećanje, Zagreb: FFPress, 2022), co-editor with Cian Duffy of Romanticism and the Cultures of Infancy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and with Charles I. Armstrong of Suffering in Anglophone Literatures (Reading Trauma and Memory Series, Rowman and Littlefield, 2025).
Her interests include literary history and the intersections of ethics, aesthetics and politics. Her current project is a monograph titled Introduction to English Romantic Poetry (Zagreb: Leykam International, forthcoming 2027). She is currently the vice-president of the Croatian Association for the Study of English and the ESSE Secretary.
Miro Frakić
Miro Frakić is a film critic and a university lecturer at the Department of Scandinavian Studies. He teaches language courses as well as holds lectures on Scandinavian (and) queer film, and on films for children and young people. He translated the book about Greta Thunberg, Naša kuća u plamenu (Our House Is on Fire), by Malena Ernman, published by Egmont, the Croatian Film Critics’ Association edition, The Show Must Go On! as well as three essays for the Croatian translation of A Companion to Experimental Cinema (ed. Federico Windhausen), which he co-edited with Marina Kožul for Association 25 FPS. His translation of P. Adams Sitney’s book Visionary Film is to be published in December 2026. He is also currently working on a translation of Matteo Pasquinelli’s The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence.
A great enthusiast of experimental cinema, he worked for several years as a programme assistant at the Split Film Festival and was a member of the critics’ jury at the 14th edition of the 25 FPS Festival. He received the Vladimir Vuković Award for Best New Critic for 2019. His texts have been published in Filmonaut, Croatian Cinema Chronicle, on the Zona filma portal of the Croatian Film Critics’ Association, and on other platforms.
He has participated in several critics’ workshops, including Sarajevo Talents and the Kino Klub Split workshop led by Jonathan Rosenbaum. He is a member of the Croatian Film Critics’ Association.
Renata Geld
Renata Geld is a Professor of Linguistics and the Founding Director of the Center for Cognitive Science at the University of Zagreb. She leads the first MA program in Applied Cognitive Science in Croatia and the wider region, recognized by national media as “the program of the future”.
As a cognitive linguist, cognitive scientist, and teacher trainer, she focuses on developing interdisciplinary educational models and creative ecosystems that foster sustainable relations between humans and technology. She also heads the Doctoral Program in Foreign Language Education and remains active in science outreach and child education, including initiatives such as First Lego League.
Nives Kovačić
Nives Kovačić is a research and teaching assistant at the SLA and TEFL section of the Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. In addition to working with future English teachers, she is a PhD candidate in the Foreign Language Education doctoral program.
She has published several research papers and participated in international workshops, including TEAM (Transdisciplinary Approaches to Learning, Acquisition, Multilingualism, Lund University) and EMLAR (Experimental Methods in Language Research, Utrecht University). Her main interests include how learners draw on their existing linguistic knowledge when learning languages and how young learners in Croatia engage with English in their everyday lives.
Stela Letica Krevelj
Stela Letica Krevelj is an Associate Professor and the Chair of the SLA and TEFL Section at the Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.
She teaches graduate and postgraduate courses on second language acquisition, multilingualism, and research methodology. Her research focuses on second and third language acquisition, multilingual language development, early (multiple) language education, and research methodology in SLA and TEFL.
With a long-standing interest in how young learners develop communicative competence in and across different languages, she is deeply engaged in initiatives that celebrate learners’ creativity, linguistic growth, and real-world use of English.
Kristijan Nikolić
Kristijan Nikolić is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. He teaches courses in linguistics, cultural studies, and translation, and his research focuses on audiovisual translation and community interpreting. He is an Honorary Research Associate at the Centre for Translation Studies at University College London.
Diana Tomić
Diana Tomić is an Assistant Professor and Chair of Applied Phonetics at the Department of Phonetics, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb in Croatia. Her research areas are speech development, oracy, and oratory.
Her book Public Speaking for Teachers, published in 2024, includes a chapter on Classroom Debate that offers a deeper insight into debating as a learning process.
She served as the Head of Center for Teacher Education (2021-2025), developed two interdisciplinary MA programs (Applied Cognitive Science & Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics), and is currently working on the development of LLE programs.
Hrvoje Tutek
Hrvoje Tutek is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. He teaches courses in literary and cultural theory and 20th and 21st-century US literature and social history. His academic work moves between literary theory, sociology of cultural forms, and Marxist theory of value, interrogating the ideological limits to imagination in contemporary culture.
He is an occasional literary translator (Croatian translation of Breece D’J Pancake’s Stories, Edicije Božičević, forthcoming) and an author of several award-winning books of poetry.
External judges (native speakers / experts)
Pauric Courtney
Deputy Head of Mission and Consul, Embassy of Ireland to Croatia
Pauric currently serves as Deputy Head of Mission and Consul at the Embassy of Ireland to Croatia. He previously worked at the Embassy of Ireland to Greece, with a focus on consular affairs, as well as at the HQ in Dublin.
He graduated from the University of Edinburgh and looks forward to judging the Spelling Challenge!
David McCallam
Dr David McCallam is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the Arts and Humanities Faculty, University of Sheffield, UK, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. In 2022, he was made a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French State for services to French culture. He has published widely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French and European literature.
His most recent book was André Chénier: Poetry and Revolution 1792-1794 (2021), a critical study and new translation of the poet’s last works. He is also a prize-winning translator of contemporary French poetry into English and a writer of short stories in both English and French.
Don Markušić
Don Markušić is the first Australian and UK-qualified lawyer admitted to the Croatian Bar. Based in Zagreb, he specialises in property, probate, company law, litigation, and arbitration, and is known for landmark cases. He has also contributed to Croatia’s legislative and institutional development, serving on the Croatian Parliament’s Legislative Committee and the Committee for Croats Abroad, and advising Croatian and foreign governments, including Ukraine and Kosovo, on legal reform.
Don is President of the ACAP Zagreb Chapter and a member of the ACAP Board of Directors in the United States. He co-founded One Croatia, a global network of 33 Croatian organisations supporting humanitarian and business initiatives.
He has served as Vice President of Transparency International Croatia and the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, is a member of the Society of the Brethren of the Croatian Dragon, an honorary member of the Glina War Veterans Association, and lectures at the Diplomatic Academy of the Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
Tom Mead
2nd Secretary, British Embassy Zagreb
Tom has served at the British Embassy for four years, working on UK-Croatia relations. Prior to moving to Zagreb, Tom represented the British Government in numerous roles in London, New York and across the Middle East, focusing primarily on defence and national security issues. Before becoming a diplomat, Tom worked in major events planning, financial services, and as a tennis coach in Australia.
In his spare time, his interests include travel, hiking, rugby, and slowly learning Croatian. Originally from Wales, Tom studied at the University of Exeter and King’s College London.
Rich Milburn
Defence Attaché to Croatia and Hungary, British Embassy Zagreb
Wing Commander Rich Milburn joined the Royal Air Force in 1998 following the completion of a bachelor’s degree in law at the University of Durham. He trained as a fighter controller and deployed to the Falkland Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan over the next 12 years controlling aircraft all around the world.
Following two tours as a test and evaluation officer for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance equipment, he was sent to Poggio Renatico in Northern Italy to work with NATO at the Deployable Command and Control Centre. Prior to his appointment as the UK Defence Attaché to Croatia and Hungary, Milburn spent 10 years studying and teaching in both the US and the UK. He holds 3 master’s degrees and a PhD in military strategy. Milburn is the author of several published articles and a recent biography of the World War Two leader of the Royal Air Force, Sir Charles Portal. His Croatian is terrible, but his English is much better!
Renata Schellenberg
Renata Schellenberg is Professor of German at Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada. An eighteenth-century scholar by training, she has published on key authors such as Goethe, Herder, and Alexander von Humboldt, as well as on print/material culture in the period. She has been awarded prestigious visiting fellowships for her research in Weimar, Halle, Berlin and London.
She maintains a strong interest in Croatian literature and is currently developing a project that focuses on commemorative literary practices in south-eastern Europe. Finally, Renata is also an active volunteer with ENGin – a non-profit organization that connects English speakers with teachers of English in Ukraine.
