Colonel of the General Staff doc. RNDr. Zuzana Kročová, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Molecular Pathology and Biology, was recently elected by the Academic Senate of the University of Defence in Brno as a candidate for the post of Rector of the University of Defence in Brno with 16 votes out of a total of 27 possible. Kročová was elected by the senate out of a total of 4 candidates. If her nomination is approved by the President of the Czech Republic, Kročová will not only become the first woman to the post of Rector of the University of Defence, but she will also be the second female general in the ACR.

Picture: Colonel of the General Staff doc. RNDr. Zuzana Kročová, Ph.D., | University of Defence, unob.cz

The University of Defence posted on their website: "On June 16, 2020, a regular meeting of the AS UoD in Brno was held, and one of the points discussed was the election of a candidate for the position of Rector. Col. of the gen. staff doc. RNDr. Zuzana KROČOVÁ, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Molecular Pathology and Biology, won already in the first round with 16 votes (out of a possible 27 votes). The documents needed for the appointment of the new Rector of the UoD will be sent by the AS UoD to the relevant institutions,“ states doc. PhDr. Hubert Hrdlička, CSc., Chairman of the Electoral Commission of the AS UoD.

From the above, it is clear that Colonel Kročová will probably become the new rector, which is a position associated with the rank of general, specifically the rank of brigadier general. Thus, if it is ratified on August 1 by the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman, Kročová will become only the second female general in the Army of the Czech Republic after Brigadier General Lenka Šmerdová. She has become not only the first female colonel in the ACR, but also the first female general. She was appointed to this position by the President on May 8, 2017. The Czech Republic has therefore had a woman in the general position for three years.

Šmerdová has combined her military career mainly with recruitment. Until 2017, she was the head of the recruiting department, and since 2017 she has been an adviser to the Chief of the General Staff and is also the chairwoman of the Military Solidarity Fund. As for Colonel Kročová, she has been the head of the department for almost five years. She is a recognized expert and has been serving in the military since 2006.

Col. of the gen. staff doc. RNDr. Zuzana Kročová, Ph.D. was born in 1960. She graduated from the Faculty of Science UJEP Brno (today's Masaryk University), majoring in physical chemistry. In 1993 she joined the Purkyně Military Medical Academy in Hradec Králové, which in 2004 became the Faculty of Military Health Sciences, where she still works as the head of the Department of Molecular Pathology and Biology. In 2001 she obtained a PhD in Clinical Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the Palacký University and in 2011 she completed a habilitation proceedings in the program of Infection biology at Faculty of Military Health Sciences in Hradec Králové. In 2006 she joined the professional army and she completed the General Staff Course in 2015.