Our Coordinators

Dr. Anna Andreeva is the Erasmus coordinator of the Faculty of Public Health, Health Care and Sport. She received a bachelor’s degree in Special Pedagogy – Logopedics and Hearing Rehabilitation, a master’s degree in Voice and Fluency Disorders and a PhD degree in the field of Hearing Disorders from South-West University „Neofit Rilski”, Bulgaria. Her research interests are focused on prevention, assessment and therapy for people with hearing and voice disorders, play for children with disabilities and implementation of robotic and assistive technologies in speech and language therapy and practice. She participated in many national and international scientific projects.

Dr. Andreeva conducted short specialization about Computerized Speech Lab and Acoustical Voice Analysis with PRAAT at the Gent University, Belgium. She has specialized in Using NAO humanoid robot in speech and language therapy with hearing impaired children at Cyprus Interaction Lab, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus as a Short Scientific Mission in the frame of COST Action TD 1309 Play for Children with Disabilities. Dr. Andreeva has presented lecture courses under Erasmus program at Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus and University of Lodz, Poland.

She is a member of national and international scientific organizations – Union of Scientists in Bulgaria, Bulgarian Public Health Association, European Public Health Association, World Federation of Public Health Associations, International Cluttering Association (ICA), Bulgarian Stroke Society.

Professor Milena Filipova is the Head of Management and Marketing Department and Erasmus coordinator of the Faculty of Economics of Southwest University “N. Rilski”. Her scientific interests are in the field of managerial decision making, crisis management, competition and competitiveness, leadership and leadership competencies.

She has presented lecture courses abroad in the following universities: University of Ostrava, Czech Republik; University of Economics and Humanities, Bielsko Biala, Poland; University of  Deusto, Bilbao, Spain; University of Aveiro, Portugal; University of Kragujevac, Serbia; University of Sumi, Ukraine.

Maya Chochkova obtained her master’s degree in Chemistry from the South-West University in 2000. She conducted her PhD studies at the same University under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Tsenka Milkova, DSci, and graduated in 2006 (Bioorganic Chemistry, Chemistry of Natural and Physiologically Active Substances).

She conducted specializations at the University of Technology, Institute for Analytical Chemistry, Micro- and Radiochemistry (Graz, Austria), “Еötvös Loránd University” (Budapest, Hungary) and Babeş-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania).

Dr. Diana Ivanova is the scientific secretary and Erasmus coordinator of the Faculty of Law and History of Southwest University “Neofit Rilski”. Her scientific interests are in the field of contemporary history, history of Central Europe, Velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe 1989, history of the Visegrad Group, history of Czechoslovakia, migration crisis.

Dr. Diana Ivanova has presented lecture courses abroad in the following universities: Macedonian University, Thessaloniki, Greece; West University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania.

She is responsible for the following obligatory courses: Contemporary History; Foreign Policy of the Eastern Europe Countries; Comparative Analysis of the Theories of the International Relations and the Foreign Policy.

The elective courses, connected to her interests, are as follows: Czechoslovakia 1918 – 1993; Contemporary Political Systems; The Resistance of the Eastern European Countries against the Soviet System; The European Union – Documents, History, Institutions; Eastern Europe after the World War II; South-Eastern Europe and the European Integration; etc. 

She specialized in the Charles University in Prague.

Dr. Diana Ivanova is a member of editorial boards of foreign and Bulgarian scientific journals: Revista Europa del Este Unida, Chile; „International Politics”, Bulgaria.

She is a member of a national scientific organization – Union of Scientists in Bulgaria.

Prof. Dr. Marinella Mladenova is the Erasmus coordinator of the Faculty of Philology. She graduated in Slavic Philology (Bulgarian and Czech) at the Paisii Hilendarski University (Plovdiv) and in General and Comparative Linguistics at the Kliment Ohridski University (Sofia). Assistant professor of Contemporary Bulgarian Language at the Neofit Rilski University (since 1987), Associate professor of Comparative Grammar of Slavic Languages (since 2003), professor of General and Comparative Linguistics (since 2022). She has taught Bulgarian language and Culture at the University of Bratislava for four years (1998-2002) and at the University of Szeged for three years (2007-2010). Prof. Mladenova is a member of the International University Seminar in Balkan Studies and of the Editorial Boards of the Journals Balkanistic Forum (Blagoevgrad), Homo Bohemicus (Sofia)  and Uluslararası Toplumsal Bilimler Dergisi (Ankara).

 Her scientific interests are in the field of comparative Slavic linguistics, Slavic micro-linguistics, contemporary Banat Bulgarian language, changes in the Bulgarian language, Bulgarian as a foreign language etc.

She has presented lecture courses abroad in the following universities: University of Szeged (Hungary), Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republik); Ankara University (Turkey), Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Lublin, Poland), Jagiellonian University (Krakow), (Poland), University of Tirana (Albania) Yerevan Brusov State University (Armenia), Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia) etc.

Assoc. Prof. Fatima Sapundzhi, PhD, is a member of the Department of Communication and Computer Engineering and Technologies and Erasmus coordinator of the Faculty of Engineering of South-West University “Neofit Rilski”.

Fatima Sapundzhi specialized in IRISA – Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires – University of Rennes 1, France; “In silico tools for drug discovery”, University of Siena, Italy; „Applied Dynamic Programming”, DAAD-Project, Ohrid, Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, University in Skopje, Macedonia; “Numerical Optimization and Applications”, DAAD-Project, Novi Sad, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Novi Sad, Serbia; School for Young Scientist, Biomath2019- Bedlevo, University of Warsaw, Poland.

She is a member of national and international scientific organizations: Union of Bulgarian Mathematicians, European Peptide Society, Bulgarian Peptide Society, and Union of Scientists in Bulgaria.

Blagovesta Dafkova, PhD, is the Erasmus coordinator of the Department of Psychology. He has a bachelor’s degree in speech therapy and a master’s degree in legal psychology. The doctoral degree is in the field of Pedagogical and Age Psychology from South-West University “Neofit Rilski”. Research and interests are related to child psychology, neuropsychology and language disorders. She participated in numerous practical trainings. Certified Montessori specialist, as well as an accredited trainer from “The International Education Atsademi Pvt” according to Australian methodology/ theory and practice. She has undergone theoretical and practical training in biofeedback therapy.

He has been working with children with problems and their families for 10 years.

Assoc. Prof. Mario Marinov, PhD is the Head of Laboratory for Sociological Research and Erasmus+ coordinator of the Faculty of Philosophy. Author of in-depth sociological studies of new religious movements, other research interests incude sociology of religion and qualitative research methods. He has publications in Bulgaria, UK, USA, Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, North Macedonia, Serbia, Germany, Switzerland, and Romania. One of the researchers for Bulgaria in the European Values Studies – 1999, 2008 and 2017. Participant in many other European research projects. He has taught at four universities in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic and has also lectured in universities in the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Romania, Poland, Turkey, Italy, and North Macedonia. Lecturer in nine Erasmus Intensive programs. Member of the editorial boards of five academic journals in Europe and Asia.

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