Macha Athina

Athena (Nadia) Machá is an Associate Professor specializing in Folklore: Folk Art at the Department of Humanities of the Democritus University of Thrace. She has received postgraduate training in Museology (Hellenic American College of Athens, specialization: Museology – Cultural Management) and earned her Ph.D. in Folklore (with distinction) from the Department of History and Ethnology at the Democritus University of Thrace.
She has participated in Greek and international research programs related to the documentation and digitization of museum costume collections, as well as the organization and implementation of international conferences and symposia on Dress, Folk Arts, and their museological utilization.
Her research interests focus on the political uses of traditional and contemporary dress, the management of museum collections, the interdisciplinary study of popular culture, and issues concerning the revival of Greek handicrafts and their connection to the economy. On these topics, she has published monographs, articles, and exhibition catalogues and has presented papers at international conferences and academic symposia in Cyprus, Moscow, Poland, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, Spain, Austria, Latvia, Slovenia, and elsewhere. Some of her articles have been translated into English, French, and Spanish.
She has been honored with a Commendation by the Faculty of Classical and Humanities Studies of the Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH, 2014) for her teaching work, and with an Excellence Award for Recognition, Influence, Social Contribution, and Service for the academic year 2023–2024, following a call and evaluation by the Faculty’s Excellence Committee, for her contribution to connecting the University with the local community. She is a founding member of the Hellenic Costume Society, and a member of the Hellenic Folklore Society, ICOM, among others.
In 2021 she was appointed National Representative of the European Museum Academy, in 2022 a member of the Regional Advisory Committee “The Global Council for Anthropological Linguistics”, and in 2024 an alternate member of the Council for Intangible Cultural Heritage. She is also a Board Member of the Vassilis Papantoniou Foundation and the Hellenic Costume Society, as well as an alternate Board Member of the Folklore and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia-Thrace.