Maria Miruna Rădan-Papasima is a professional in their field. They is proficient in French and English. Colleagues describe them as "I got to know Maria at Oxford-Brookes University where, in addition to her degree work, she was already playing an active role in promoting Romanian tourism in the university community... As a result of those initial contacts, on one of her frequent trips back to Romania, Maria worked as a volunteer for the Ratiu Center for Democracy of which I am a director. She conducted two sociological studies in the villages of Bădeni (in 2009) and Petreştii de Jos (2011). On each occasion she spent about a week conducting interviews with the locals and subsequently presented us with a comprehensive, first-rate report. The first study was aimed at finding ways of encouraging agrotourism in Bădeni. Maria made some very informative observations and gave us a number of useful suggestions which we were able to follow through. We made good use of some of her suggestions in setting up a stand showcasing the village of Bădeni during Turda Fest in 2009. Also, following her advice, we organised a visit by a group of women from Bădeni to the well-known village of Viscri which proved to be very motivating, and encouraged them to get involved in hosting tourists. Maria's research in Petreştii was a SWOT analysis concerning the possible impact of the Ratz de Nagylak hotel project. It also aimed at identifying possible areas of intervention for the village-outreach activities of CRD. Maria’s report answered many of our questions and gave us valuable information about the local community which we continue to use to this day, for example in our current funding application with Unicredit. Maria was accompanied on both projects by a small group of highly motivated undergraduate students specially recruited by her from the Sociology Faculty at the University of Bucharest. She is an excellent team leader and under her guidance the students were able to carry out interviews and learn a lot about empirical research methods. Maria has always stood by her commitments, delivered even more than she promised and shown herself keen and able to pass on her knowledge and skills to those younger than herself. I believe Maria’s doctoral research could be an important contribution to the development of rural tourism in Romania. An in-depth, detailed understanding of existing agrotouristic initiatives is badly needed at this time, and could form the basis of future successful projects which could in turn help develop and empower Romania's rural communities. As we well know, there is a lot of untapped potential for tourism in Romania’s villages and, at the same time, an urgent need for diversifying the rural economy. I believe Maria’s work will make a valuable contribution to Romanian tourism development."