Young Researchers’ Colloquium for First Time Authors

Vanesa Vargas is Lecturer at the Faculty of Business Administration in foreign languages, where she teaches Entrepreneurship, the European Business Environment and Business Simulations. Her field of research is focused on E-Commerce, and her doctoral thesis was centered on the use of personal data in E-Business and Consumer Protection. She is the office manager of the Higher Education and Research in Management of European Universities (HERMES) and past President of the Rotaract Deva Association. She is a graduate of the German section of the Faculty of Business Administration in Foreign Languages and completed in 2019 the studies for the Bachelor of Laws. Vanesa is a former Konrad Adenauer Foundation scholar and in 2016 she obtained a Trainer certificate. She completed an internship in the Romanian Government, at the Ministry for Small and Medium Enterprises. Recently, she has taken on a key role in organizing the International Conference on Business Excellence, the International Conference on Economics and Social Sciences and publishing the conference proceedings. Vanesa has strong ties with the entrepreneurial network of FABIZ and actively contributes to its development. 

Adriana AnaMaria Davidescu is a Full Professor at the Department of Statistics and Econometrics, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania. She is the Head of the Data Science Research Lab, specialising in applications for business and economics, and a senior researcher at the Department of Labour Market Policies of the National Scientific Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection. With over 17 years of experience in socio-economic research, she has been deeply involved in various analytical pursuits.For over 17 years, she has delved into informality issues at both national and international levels. She has led various national research projects and served as a senior expert for the European Commission, specifically for the European Platform that addresses Undeclared Work.Prof. Davidescu possesses extensive expertise in the evaluation of public projects and programs. Her prowess in project team management is evident, having coordinated more than 14 national projects and played a pivotal role as a senior expert in over 50 national and international endeavours. She has showcased her expertise in counterfactual methods during the assessment process, especially in empirically testing causal chains in interventions related to the Operational Program Competitiveness 2014-2020 Evaluation Plan, the Human Capital Operational Program 2014-2020 Evaluation, and the Partnership Agreement Evaluation Plan. She held the esteemed position of a modelling key expert. She served as the team leader for the Operational Program Competitiveness 2014-2020 Evaluation Plan, focusing on evaluating POC interventions in research, development, and innovation. Additionally, she was a senior modelling expert, instrumental in assessing the impact of interventions for both the Human Capital Operational Program 2014-2020 Evaluation Plan and the Partnership Agreement Evaluation Plan, with an emphasis on economic, social, and territorial cohesion.

Marina-Diana Agafiței is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics and Econometrics at Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania. She also serves as a researcher in the Data Science Research Lab, focusing on data-driven approaches for business and economics. In addition, she is a research assistant at the National Scientific Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection, where her work supports the Department of Education, Continuous Training, and Labor Market Relations. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Cybernetics and Economic Statistics, her research primarily explores tax evasion and the informal economy through both quantitative and qualitative methods, alongside advanced data science techniques. Her other areas of interest include taxation systems, the intersection of the informal economy and labour market, and public policy evaluation. Additionally, she is actively involved in both institutional and international projects that span topics such as informality, artificial intelligence, and public policy.