In Vienna, she started studying chemistry and completed the studies in Ljubljana as the first doctoral student at a newly founded Slovenian university. Even before her doctorate, she and her mentor, Maks Samec, published a lengthy scientific debate in the renowned scientific journal Kolloidchemische Beihefte in Dresden, which is considered to be the first scientific publication of the chemistry department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. After a misunderstanding with the mentor, she ended her academic and research career in 1922 with a resignation letter and moved to the world of business. She founded the company Dr. A. Kansky - Chemical Factory, and later set up a chemical factory in Podgrad near Ljubljana, the first of its kind in Yugoslavia at that time.

The doctoral thesis of Anka Mayer addressed the contemporary dilemma of whether formaldehyde breaks down starch or not. In the five years preceding the doctorate, several studies were published, but they contradicted each other. Through the comprehensive treatment of the problem, Anka Mayer found that starch is not broken down by formaldehyde. She also discovered why others came to the wrong conclusions. The purity of the chemicals, avoiding the possible oxidation of formaldehyde into formic acid, and the necessity to maintain the sterility of the samples were the reasons that led to contradictory and erroneous results. That way, she solved the basic dilemma and also indicated how similar research should be conducted in the future.

Anka Mayer was a remarkable and courageous person who was ahead of her time. It was not common for girls to go to high school, let alone university and get a doctorate. Her symbolic value is also very important, as her doctorate was the first one in chemistry and the first one at the University of Ljubljana; done by a woman. Therefore, she can be considered a harbinger of the coming new era in which women are emancipated. Her Ph.D. is important and quality work, embedded in the development of contemporary organic chemistry, and in the development of chemical science itself. She was also a herald of so-called »start ups«. She had the ability, the will and the courage to start her own business after retiring from her academic career. She was a successful player in the pre-war market and the range of her products indicates that it was a small-scale chemical factory that produced various consumer goods as well as products for research laboratories.

Anka Mayer Kansky returned from Vienna to Ljubljana and began her doctoral work under the guidance of Maks Samec in the field of starch research, which was the main research topic of Professor Samec. She composed an excellent doctoral thesis, which was also repeatedly published and cited in the European area. Later, she and her husband decided on an entrepreneurial path. Dr. Mayer is thus considered both a reputable chemist and a very capable businesswoman.

After everything I've discovered and heard about my grandmother, Anka Mayer Kansky was a remarkable woman with a special set of skills. She was smart, persistent, courageous, advanced, emancipated. A respectable lady in all regards.

I did not know Grandma, but she influenced me nonetheless through her energy and the position she achieved, the emancipation, the impetus. She is the antithesis of my father's education [Montenegrean writer Miodrag Bulatović]. I cannot imagine how a woman could study in the country my father came from.

I did not know Grandma, but I did become quite familiar with the portrait that hung on the wall of our room. Through it, I experience my grandmother as a mighty figure who was graceful, kind, independent, intelligent, precise and kind. That's how I see her, and if it wasn't for that model, I wouldn't have dared to do many a thing in my life.