Bitay Enikő was born in Cluj-Napoca on June the 4th 1960 as the second child of Bitay Csaba and Halmai Magdolna. She has one sibling, Bitay Endre.
She graduated from the Brassai Sámuel high school in 1979. The teachers who influenced her career were Boda Károly (Mathematics)[1], Pázmány Zsuzsa (Physics) and Sóvágó Margit (Sports, Principal).
Earned her engineer’s diploma at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca[2], Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, first in the specialty of Metallurgy (1984), later in IT Engineering (2008). Achieved her PhD in her Alma mater in the field of Engineering Material Science under the guidance of scientific advisor, Professor Pálfalvi Attila[3].
In 1984 she married Talpas János. They have one child, Talpas Botond (born in 1988)
Her career began at the Tehnofrig factory in Cluj-Napoca where she was a Design Engineer. Following fifteen years of activity in the industry she became a scientific collaborator at the Transylvanian Museum Society (EME, 2000-2007). Since 2007 she is an Associate Professor of the Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania. She became the secretary (1994-2002) and later the chairperson (2002-) of the EME’s Department of Technical Sciences. Since 2006 she is the secretary general of the EME.
She is an editor of the Technical Science Papers (Műszaki Tudományos Füzetek)[4] , the History of Science and Technology Papers (Tudomány- és Technikatörténeti Füzetek)[5], of the yearly volumes of proceedings from the Conference for Young Engineers and those from the Conference for Technical Sciences, both of which are edited as part of the Technical Science Publisher Műszaki Tudományos Közlemények[6]volume series. She is the editor-in-chief of the Acta Materialia Transylvanica. In 2016 she was elected as an external member by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
[1] Gaal György: A magát elemésztő fáklya. In: Művelődés, 2008. http://www.muvelodes.ro/index.php/Cikk?id=48
[2] Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Universitatea Tehnică Cluj/Napoca: Faculty of Materials Engineering and Environments , Facultatea de Ingineria Materialelor si a Mediului: http://www.utcluj.ro/ (http://imm.utcluj.ro/, Faculty of Computer Science, Facultatea de Automatica si Calculatoare: http://ac.utcluj.ro/)
[3] Bitay Enikő: In memoriam Pálfalvi Attila (1930–2010). Erdélyi Múzeum 72. volume 1–2 part, 2010. EME, Kolozsvár, 133–134. http://eda.eme.ro/handle/10598/26002, also in the daily newspaper Szabadság, March the 17th 2010.. http://www.szabadsag.ro/szabadsag/servlet/szabadsag/template/article,PArticleScreen.vm/id/39185.
[4] Can be accessed online here: http://eda.eme.ro/handle/10598/9742