Tomislav Bolanča was born in Zagreb in 1974. He graduated from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science, in 1998 with a degree in chemistry. He obtained his Master's degree in 2000 and his PhD in 2003, both at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology (FCET). He has been employed at FCET since 1998. From 2013 to 2017 he was Vice Dean and from 2017 to 2021 Dean of FCET. He is currently Vice-Rector for Business and Digitalization at the University of Zagreb.

In 2018, Tomislav Bolanča was elected full professor in a permanent position. His main scientific interests are environmental engineering, analytical chemistry and applied artificial intelligence. He has published more than 90 scientific papers. He completed his scientific training at the National Institute of Chemistry (Slovenia, 2000 and 2003) and at Dionex corp. (Idstein, Germany, 2003 and Sunnyvale, USA, 2003). He has been a permanent member of the Steering Committee of the Central European Group for Separation Sciences since 2013 and President of the Croatian Society of Chemical Engineers since 2020.