Euphrosyne Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou was born in Larissa, Greece. She studied History and Archaeology at the University of Athens, Prehistoric and Classical Archaeology at the University of Heidelberg, and at the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London. She holds a Ph.D. from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
She settled in Cyprus in 1978. She worked initially as a philologist in secondary education and subsequently joined the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus, where she served as Archaeological Officer (1983–1995) and as Head of the Branch of Modern Culture (1990–1995). From 1995 to 2013, she was Professor of Folk Art and Architecture in the Department of History and Archaeology of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Cyprus. Since 2015, she has been Adjunct Professor at The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia.
Professor Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou is a member of twenty international and local organisations, associations and societies in the fields of history, archaeology, ethnology, ethnography, folklore and folk art. From 1998 to 2004, she served as a member of the Cyprus Radio and Television Authority.
She has participated in thirty-one research projects and presented her research at 102 conferences in twenty-five countries. She has authored, independently or in collaboration with others, sixteen books (with three additional volumes forthcoming) and thirty-eight book chapters. In addition, twenty-seven of her articles have been published in Greek and international scholarly journals, along with forty-one studies in conference proceedings. Her research has been published in five European languages.
Her research encompasses all aspects of traditional culture, with particular emphasis on material culture, including folk art and craftsmanship, traditional architecture and pre-industrial technology, ethnographic collections and archival material, traditional food culture, and related fields.
In January 2012, she was appointed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth of Cyprus and the Cyprus National Commission for UNESCO as Cyprus’ expert representative, as a member state of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
