Vassilis Nitsiakos was born in Aetomilitsa of Ioannina in 1958. He studied Philology, Folklore Studies and Social Anthropology at the Universities of Ioannina, Leeds and Cambridge. In 1985 he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Cambridge. Since 1989 he has been teaching at the University of Ioannina, where he has been Professor of Social Folklore Studies since 2006. In 1994-98 he was a research associate at the University of Cambridge on an international research project. In recent years he has been researching issues of migration, borders and national identities, as well as cultural ecology and social economy. He has published scholarly articles in Greek and international journals and edited volumes in Greek, English, Italian, Albanian and Bulgarian.