Zoya Barbolova has a PhD in Philology. She is an Associate Professor at the BAS Institute for Bulgarian Language ‘Prof. Lubomir Andreychin’. She graduated from Sofia University ‘St Kliment Ohridski’ with a degree in Turkish Philology. Her doctoral dissertation topic was ‘The word-formation category of nomina instrumenti in Bulgarian dialects’. She has participated in a number of collaborative research projects. Assoc. Prof. Zoya Barbolova has worked at the Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University and at the Kyrgyz National University ‘Jusup Balasagyn’ in the city of Bishkek. She has published the following books: Readings of Old Bulgarian Literature vol. 1 (1992) and vol. 2 (1993); Speech practice textbook (co-authored with V.Kolesnik). Odessa, 1996; Contemporary Bulgarian Language. Morphology. Sofia, 1997; The Bessarabian village of Kirnichki dialect (co-authored with V.Kolesnik). Odessa, 1998; Words denoting vessels in dialectal varieties of Bulgarian. Sofia, 1977; Characteristic features of the Bulgarian dialect in the village of Chervenoarmeiskoe (Kubei), Bolhrad region, Odessa Province, the Ukraine. Odessa. 1999. Assoc. Prof. Barbolova compiled and authored the appendices in D. Tsvetko’s Collection of songs from the Ukraine and the Crimea. Sofia, BAS, 2005; Bulgarian words denoting headscarf. Ethnolinguistic analysis. Sofia, BAS, 2006; Mythological and semantic structure and origin of the Bulgarian adjectives сур and сурва. Varna, 2012. Over 80 articles and papers in Bulgarian and international science compendia and journals point to the vast scope of her linguistic research expertise: word-formation, dialectology, contemporary Bulgarian, ethno-linguistics, sociolinguistics, onomastics, phraseology, etc. She is a member of the Union of Scientists, the International Sociolinguistic Society and the Society of Bulgarian Studies researchers in Odessa.