I am a journalist, writer, sociologist, and programmer from the city of Cluj, Transylvania (Romania).
I think I wrote my first piece of fiction when I was 14 or so. I wrote so far a few short stories, stage plays, and screenplays. You can find here information about my writing and read some of my texts in English (such as Yellow or Apples and Walnuts) and in Romanian.
Read my blog in Romanian here and my blog in English here.
I work with NCN TV in the News Department (watch me 
), and run SevenTimes.ro – a Transylvania News in English website that I founded in January 2007. I also taught, as a guest lecturer, journalism at Babes-Bolay University.
I am the author of Agna, a software for Social Network Analysis. Because it’s platform-independent, user-friendly, and free, Agna is being used by numerous sociologists and psychologists around the world. Right now, the Agna website is no longer available, as it was hosted on the defunct Geocities. I’ll try to rebuild it as soon as possible.
I spent three years in Ireland at UCC as a PhD student in Sociology. Now I am in the process of writing my thesis, which I still hope I’ll finish, although time flew faster than I thought it would.
I have a photo gallery On flickr.com: watch it here.
Research interests
- interpretive sociology, social space & cyberspace, identity & the self
- media & new media, phenomenology
- communication networks, social psychology
- statistical methods, mathematical models
Academic writings
- 2009: Social Network Analysis (SNA): An interdiscilinary frame for the study of human-animal communication, in: “Studii de psihopedagogie speciala”, Vol. 1, Cluj University Press, Cluj, pp. 123-129; joint author: Alina Rusu
- 2005: Studying communication networks with Agna 2.1, in: “Cognitie, Creier, Comportament / Cognition, Brain, Behavior” (Ed. by Romanian Association of Cognitive Sciences), September 2005, Vol. 9 No. 3, Cluj, pp. 567-574
- 2004: Identity, from hospital to kitchen, in: Copoeru, I. & Szabo, N. (Editors): “Beyond Identity: Transformations of identity in a (post) modern world”, House of the Book of Science, Cluj, pp. 43-52
- 2004 Book review: José Lopez, Society and its Metaphors: Language, Social Theory and Social Structure, in: Irish Journal of Sociology, Vol 13.1
- 2002: Dolly in the wonderland of the identity constructionism. Or: The ontological structure of space and being in the “natural attitude”, in: Copoeru, I. & Mihali, C. (Editors): “Cartografii ale modernitatii”, House of the Book of Science, Cluj, pp. 152-159
- 1999: Ontogenetic aspects of the constitution of personal space, in: “Parallaxis”, 3/1999, Ed. by the Faculty of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University; joint author: Alina Rusu (in Romanian)
- 1999: Social spaces, virtual spaces, in: “Vatra” No.2, Targu Mures (in Romanian)
- 1998: The anthropology of everyday life and its phenomenological grounds, in: “Caietele Tranzitiei” No 2, Ed. by the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj (in Romanian)
Media experience
- November 2009 to present: Presenter and Editor (Top Story), NCN TV Cluj
- March to July 2009: Editor Coordinator, AXA TV Transilvania
- September 2008 to March 2009: News Editor & Presenter, NCN TV Cluj
- September 2006 to September 2008: News Editor & Presenter, Radio Guerrilla Cluj
- 2006 (May-August): News Reporter, BBC Romania
- 2006 (February-April): Chief Producer, Radio 21 Cluj, News Department
- 2001: News Editor & Presenter, Radio Cluj
- 1999-2001: News Editor & Presenter, Radio Pro FM Cluj
- 1998-1999: Producer & Presenter, Radio Sonic Cluj, News Department
Contact me
- by e-mail: imbenta@yahoo.co.uk
- by telephone: +40721845458
- by Yahoo messenger: imbenta
- on Facebook
- on LinkedIn
