Mariana Ziku holds a BA in Art Sciences, an MA in Theory/History of Art and Curation (Dept. of Fine Arts and Art Sciences, University of Ioannina, Greece), and an MSc in Digital Humanities (Dept. of Computer Science, KU Leuven, Belgium). She is currently PhD candidate and research associate at the Intelligent Interaction Research Group, Dept. of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean. She is also staff member of the Master’s Programme Folk/Popular Culture and Modern Cultural Heritage at the Hellenic Open University.

Her research is in Digital Cultural Heritage/Cultural Informatics, and in particular the digital transformation of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCE)/Folklore with an emphasis on the Balkan area, and technical research focus on Crowdsourcing, Participatory Design, and Linked Open Data. She has been trained in the digital curation of intangible, audiovisual and documentary heritage in Egypt, Belgium, and Germany as grant recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci European Commission programme. She has been working as project manager, researcher and professional in the framework of over 10 European and national programmes in resesarch, culture, and education. She is cofounder of the Biennale of Western Balkans.