Waltraud Kofler Engl (born 1959) studied art history and history at the Universities of Innsbruck and Florence. She received her doctorate in 1985. After teaching art history for two years, she worked from 1986 as an inspector of the Office for the Preservation of Monuments of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, South Tyrol and from 1994 in the function of director. During this time, she not only dealt intensively with the restoration, conservation and conversion of architectural and artistic monuments, but also with issues of cultural heritage education and mediation in the form of conferences, lectures, guided tours, radio broadcasts and publications. Since September 2018, she has been director of the newly established Cultural Heritage Cultural Production Platform at the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Her publications deal with the history, reception and restoration of buildings and works of art in Tyrol, medieval murals, historical gardens, in particular the gardens of the Prince-Bishop’s Hofburg in Brixen/Bressanone and the controversial heritage of fascist architecture and art in Bolzano. Her current research focuses on architecture and art of the interwar period and fascism, testimonies of the First World War and the militarisation of the landscape (Ortles and Dolomites fronts, bunkers, Vallo Alpino), conflicts and controversial cultural heritage as well as the historical gardens in South Tyrol. She is currently head (PI) of the research project "Written in the Landscape. Places, Traces, Memories. The First World War in the Sesto Dolomites". In 2022 she was guest professor at the University of Innsbruck. She is current member of the Working Group for Theory and Teaching of Monument Conservation in Germany and of ICOMOS Germany.