Helen was born in Manchester, UK and grew up in Greece. She graduated from the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Athens (1972) and received her PhD from King's College, University of London (1988).Since 1975 she worked lat the Modern Greek History Research Centre of the Academy of Athens, initially as a part time research assistant and, from October 1981, as a researcher. In September 2006 she became its director.
Her research interests cover the political and social history of 19th and early 20th century Greece.Between 2008 and 2017 she represented the Academy of Athens in DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities). She coordinated DYAS, which is the Greek Digital Research Infrastructure for in the Arts and Humanities, and acted as the national coordinator for Greece in DARIAH ERIC.
Lately, she devotes most of her time to initiatives for the promotion of digital research infrastructure for the humanities. However, her continuing research interests involve aspects of early 19th century political history (Greek Revolution) and pre- World War I political and diplomatic history. Her particular areas of research focus on the suppression of slavery and slave trade during the Greek Revolution and on her long term project, which is the preparation of a biography of Ioannis Valaoritis.