Kurepa was born on 1 May 1933 in town of
Bačka Palanka,
Vojvodina,
Serbia. In 1956, he began his working at the
Vinca Nuclear Institute in
Belgrade. Kurepa graduated from the
University of Belgrade Faculty of Mathematics under
Aleksandar Milojević, and later
electrical engineering in the
United Kingdom, under
J. D. Craggs. His thesis topic was slow electron scattering off atoms and molecules. Kurepa then joined the
University of Belgrade physics department as an assistant professor. He became a professor in 1981 and continued in that position until his retirement in 1998. Kurepa often worked at Universities abroad, including
Germany and the
UK. Kurepa's
pedagogical work at the undergraduate and graduate levels was highly valued. He was a coauthor of 12 university and 4 high-school textbooks. In 1964, Kurepa joined the newly founded Institute of Physics at the University of Belgrade as a research scientist. There, he started the
Atomic Physics Laboratory. Due primarily to Kurepa's leadership, the
Atomic Physics Laboratory gained an international reputation in the field of electron collisions with atoms or molecules. At present, about a dozen of Kurepa's students are scientists and professors at leading universities in
Australia,
Belgium, the
UK,
France,
Germany,
Slovenia,
Sweden, and the
United States. He was an outstanding organizer, coordinating numerous domestic and international conferences. He served as president of many Yugoslavian academic institutions. In 1994, Kurepa was elected the corresponding member of the
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. During the isolation of Yugoslavian scientists from the rest of the world due to United Nations sanctions, Kurepa organized a very successful meeting of SANU in 1997 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the
discovery of the electron. Kurepa fought for democracy in
Yugoslavia. A vigorous adversary of
Slobodan Milosevic's regime, Kurepa founded in 1997 the Association of University Professors and Scientists, with the principal aim of fighting for the recovery of basic university freedoms in Serbia. He was AUPR's first president. The association has been especially active since 1998, when the University Act was introduced to abolish the autonomy of Serbian universities. AUPR has organized protest meetings at Serbian universities, published statements regarding university autonomy and freedom of opinion, appealed to international academic associations for intervention with the Serbian government, and engaged in similar activities. During the 2000 electoral campaign, Kurepa traveled around Serbia with the students' movement
Otpor!. Otpor awarded him a certificate, acknowledging him as "the most resistive professor." ==Other==