Nada Gjetvaj was born in Sisak in 1930. She attended elementary and lower secondary school in Glina, and graduated from high school and from the Faculty of Philosophy, ethnology major, in Zagreb.
A graduate ethnologist, she at once joined in field research into the villages in the region of Glina being carried out by the Folk Art Institute in Zagreb (today’s Ethnology and Folk Lore Institute) and in the autumn of the same year received a permanent appointment in the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb. At the beginning she managed the Wood Ethnographic Objects Collection and until her retirement was charged with the collection of objects, keeping documentation for the Household Inventory Collection, which she presented to the public in a number of exhibitions. During her field work she took hundreds of photographs that are stored in the photographic documentation of the Museum. As well as registering the ethnographic material, she made architectural drawings of vernacular construction structures in the area of Glina, Gospić, Kumrovec, Gračac, Moslavina, Banija and Gorski Kotar.
She has created numerous exhibitions, among which the following claim particular attention: Wood in Traditional Working; From Grain to Flatbread; Žumberak - Life and Culture; Artistic Expression in the Folk Creative Work of Banija and the Architectural Heritage and its Renovation. She also devised and created numerous permanent displays - of Sošice (Žumberak), Zelina, Ivanovo Selo, Lika Museum in Gospić.
She took part in numerous conferences and symposia, at which she gave well received lectures. She received an MA for her thesis History and Perspective Growth of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb in 1981. She is the author of numerous scholarly and specialised papers.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on June 30, 2003.