Zorana Mutavski was born on November 25, 1995, in Vršac, Serbia, where she completed her primary and secondary education. She enrolled in undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad in the 2014/2015 academic year and graduated in October 2018 with a thesis titled “Application of Maltodextrins in the Drying of Liquid Pomegranate Bark Extract Using Spray Drying.” She enrolled in Master's studies in 2018 at the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad, specializing in Pharmaceutical Engineering, and completed her studies in 2019 with a master’s thesis titled “Supercritical Extraction of Thyme, Oregano, and Sage.” She started her doctoral studies in 2019 at the same faculty, at the Department of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, specializing in Pharmaceutical Engineering. During the 2020/2021 academic year, she worked as a teaching assistant for the courses Medicinal Plant Raw Materials, Pharmaceutical Product Technology, and Chemistry and Technology of Dietary Supplements in the same department.

Zorana has participated in 14 international scientific and professional conferences and is the author of two scientific research papers. She was awarded a scholarship funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), which allowed her to participate in a Short-Term Scientific Mission at the Institute of Experimental Biology and Technology (iBET) in Portugal in 2021. During 2021, she also participated in an Erasmus+ project for student mobility, spending three months at the Faculty of Food Technology in Osijek. From 2020 to 2022, she was a scholarship recipient of the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development as a doctoral student. Since May 2022, she has been employed as a research intern at the Department of Pharmaceutical Research and Development at the Institute for Medicinal Plant Research “Dr. Josif Pančić.”

Zorana’s research focuses on the extraction of bioactive compounds from natural sources, particularly the development, enhancement, and implementation of green technologies for the extraction of compounds from plant material and agricultural-food waste, with a focus on innovative technologies such as supercritical CO2 extraction, subcritical water extraction, ultrasound, and microwave-assisted extraction, as well as technologies for the production of dry extracts (spray drying and lyophilization).