Maria Kavala was born in 1968 in Thessaloniki. She is Assistant Professor of History of Exclusions and Discrimination (Modern History) in the School of Political Sciences of AUTH. She has also taught at the University of Western Macedonia (2010) and the Hellenic Open University (2010-2023). Between 1990-2011, she was working as an editor and proofreader.

She studied History at the Ionian University and completed postgraduate studies and a PhD thesis in History, at the Departments of History and Archeology at AUTH and at the University of Crete respectively. Her research interests focus on the Greek socio-economic history and oral history during the interwar period, the years of the Nazi German occupation and the post-war years; she also focuses on the Holocaust, the history of anti-Semitism as well as the history of ideologies and practices of exclusion and discrimination in 20th century.

She participates at the Board of Historical Archives Preservation Society- Macedonia. She participated at the Board of the Oral History Association from 2016-2021. She is founding member of the Hellenic Union of Historians (https://greekhistorians.com/)  as well as member of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Black Sea and Mediterranean Studies (https://ilabsem.web.auth.gr/. During her research career, she has participated in international and Greek conferences, research projects, she has curated exhibitions. She has received state scholarship, AUTH Excellence, “Alberto Nar” scholarship, Latsis Foundation, Yad Vashem, Rothschild and a Fulbright scholarship at UCSB University.