Black-and-white portrait of Katarína Slobodová Nováková holding a book — Portrait, 2026.

My story

A life shaped by curiosity, places and people.

My work sits at the intersection of research, education, leadership and cultural heritage. I am drawn to questions about how people remember, how communities carry their traditions forward, and how knowledge can travel across borders.

This page is a visual introduction to that journey — the fieldwork, the classrooms, the collaborations and the quiet moments with people and stories that continue to shape my thinking.

Research in the field

Listening to places and the people who keep them alive.

Ethnographic research begins with presence — with conversations, observation and the patience to understand how communities experience their own heritage.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková in conversation with an older woman outside a traditional wooden house during field research — Field research and oral history documentation.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková with Maasai women during research in Tanzania — Cultural encounters across communities and continents.

Two women in traditional Slovak folk costume during ethnographic research — Living traditions and cultural identity.

From field to shared knowledge

Research returns to the classroom and the public conversation.

What begins as fieldwork continues in lectures, academic presentations, educational programmes and international collaboration — where findings become shared knowledge.

Academic presentation and public lecture — Academic presentations and public lectures.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková giving an academic presentation and lecture in front of an audience — Bringing research into academic education and dialogue.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková in discussion with colleagues at a professional event — Connecting researchers, institutions and communities.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková at Trinity College, University of Toronto — Knowledge crossing borders through international cooperation.

Research across borders

Scholarship is stronger when it is shared.

International collaboration has been central to my research — from African universities to European networks and diaspora communities around the world.

Kenya

Mount Kenya University

A long-term academic partnership built on research cooperation, academic mobility and continuing scholarly exchange.

Tanzania

University of Dar es Salaam

Collaboration connecting institutional partnership with doctoral education and mentoring across institutions.

Kenya

GEP — Gender Equality Project

International capacity-building collaboration bringing academic partners together through joint research, knowledge exchange and mobility.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková speaking at the GEP international conference in Kenya — GEP international conference, Kenya.

Teaching, leadership & knowledge sharing

Turning knowledge into possibility.

From university classrooms to public lectures and institutional leadership, my work has always been about helping ideas find their audience.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková as Dean with doctoral graduates — As Dean of the Faculty of Arts with doctoral graduates.

Appointment as Professor of Ethnology, 2021.

Katarína Slobodová Nováková speaking as Rector — Speaking as Rector of the University.

Heritage, people & stories

Heritage lives in people first.

Whether working with diaspora communities or documenting cultural traditions, my research keeps returning to the same truth: heritage is carried by people.

Community moment from the Slovak Epic project.

Panel discussion on heritage and identity.

Closing

Research, education, heritage and people — connected.

Every project I take on is an attempt to bring these threads together: to understand the past more clearly, to share knowledge more generously, and to create space for the stories that still need to be told.

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