Nikolina Zenović is a Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistic Anthropology at Indiana University, Bloomington. She earned her B.A. with highest honors in Anthropology and Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and her M.A. in Social Sciences with a concentration in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. She also holds an M.A. in Anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington.

Nikolina’s doctoral research interests include understanding the interconnections between discourses of sustainability, language and materiality, and soundscapes in Greece. At Indiana University, Nikolina has taught courses on aural ecologies and interpersonal communication and graded courses on language and culture. She also serves as a writing tutor and has taught Modern Greek to elementary school students in the Bloomington community. Additionally, she co-organizes the IU Linguistic Anthropology Works-in-Progress group which meets regularly to workshop research and writing dealing with language and culture. Nikolina is also one of the Graduate Representatives for the Society for Linguistic Anthropology and has served in several leadership roles for the Anthropology Graduate Student Association at Indiana University.

As a 2026-2027 Fulbright-IKY Fellow, Nikolina will be conducting her doctoral fieldwork in Astypalaia, Greece. Her research explores local experiences of sustainable development through the lens of language and sound. During her time in Astypalaia, Nikolina will conduct participant observation, interviews, linguistic landscaping, and sound recordings. She seeks to identify how local sustainability discourses are formed and circulate in relation to broader regional discourses and how changes in the soundscape and environment are reflected in local language use. Nikolina’s work brings together linguistic and environmental anthropology and sound studies to better understand the linguistic and sonic dimensions of experiences of sustainable development.