Mića Đurđev (Mica Djurdjev) (born in 1988, Zrenjanin, Serbia) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Novi Sad, Technical Faculty “Mihajlo Pupin”, Zrenjanin. He earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Industrial Engineering from the same faculty and received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, in 2021 with the dissertation “Application of Modern Metaheuristic Algorithms in the Process Planning Optimization.” From 2013 to 2017, he held a scholarship from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, and received the “Prof. Dr. Janko Hodolič” Award for Best Young Researcher at the 12th ETIKUM conference in 2018. He has worked at Technical Faculty “Mihajlo Pupin” since February 2018 (teaching associate → assistant professor) and has authored or co-authored ten papers in leading international journals and numerous conference papers; he has also mentored eight BSc/MSc theses and served on committees for over 20 defences, including one doctoral thesis. His research interests include optimisation problems, metaheuristic algorithms, experimental design, and applied machine learning on manufacturing and industrial problems. He holds certifications in single-/multi-objective optimisation, Python programming, and supervised machine learning, and is fluent in English with strong communication, teamwork, and presentation skills. e-mail 1: mica.djurdjev@tfzr.rs; e-mail 2: micadjurdjev@gmail.com.