Karla Iulia Elkan

Karla is a graduate of Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Law, and of Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where she completed her Master’s degree in Arts, Culture, and Society.
Upon her MA, she has gained knowledge in Qualitative and Quantitative Research that she has applied in various individual and group projects within the topics of Creative and Sustainable Cities, Cultural Policy, Sociology of Culture and Critical Heritage Studies. Her research interests span across various disciplines, looking at the intersection of the human with its surroundings. From urban development and gentrification processes to heritage as a catalyst of social well-being, she aims to explore how these dynamics play a role in society and in the individual. She has been active in the cultural scene through volunteering, but also within bottom-up initiatives such as an animation film festival that she co-founded this year in Cluj-Napoca.

She had the opportunity to present her MA thesis at two international conferences, the Arts and Cultural Management Conference 2024 in Vienna and the II Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies: Central and Eastern Europe Chapter at the University of Warsaw in 2025, aiming to continue her studies in the future.

She is a member of the European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage (ESACH) and a Young Member of Europa Nostra.