Barbara Zach is the director of the Archäobotanik Laboratory in Bernbeuren and has more than three decades of experience conducting archaeobotanical research across Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia. She works with the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology and Fredrick Schiller University as the Kuckenburg project archaeobotanist, focusing on the paleoeconomy of the Bronze Age occupants.

Previously, Barbara held a research fellowship at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, where she studied medieval archaeobotany and worked on material from three ancient towns. She was awarded fellowships at Goethe University in Frankfurt, where she focused on pioneering archaeobotanical research in West Africa, and the University zu Koeln as an African archaeobotanist for Egypt and Sudan. She holds a biology diploma with a botany major from the University of Hohenheim, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.