Lina Zirganou-Kazolea is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Athens. Her research focuses on social representations of politics and the relation between subjective perceptions of politics and political behavior in contemporary Greece. She explores the different ways in which Greek citizens understand, define and give meaning to politics, as well as the potential effects on their political participation, in an attempt to transfer the concept of Social Representations from the discipline of Social Psychology to Political Science.

Lina holds an MA in Research in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick, an MA in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Athens and a BA in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of Athens.  Alongside her studies, she has worked in various research projects, which include examining the profile of candidates for the Greek regional and municipal elections, documenting hate speech examples in online media and exploring the concept of radicalism in the Greek youth, as well as participating in European programmes, such as Erasmus ACT.