Marilena Mela is an Assistant Professor of Heritage Studies at the Department of Arts & Culture, History, and Antiquity of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research interests lie at the intersection of heritage, sustainability, landscape, and climate—focusing more broadly on the situated links between inherited pasts and imagined futures in the face of the climate crises. Her recently published book, Assembling the Archipelago: Heritage in Energy Transitions and Climate Action (Routledge, 2025), explores the roles of heritage in sustainability across four island landscapes in the Netherlands, Greece, Scotland, and Italy. She teaches courses and supervises theses on heritage, history, design, landscape, and urbanism. She also collaborates with the award-winning collective Boulouki (Europa Nostra Award 2024), whose work centres on traditional building practices and local knowledge within Greek landscapes.She earned her PhD at VU Amsterdam as part of the European Marie Curie-funded project HERILAND. Previously, she studied architecture and architectural theory at the National Technical University of Athens.
