Born in Zagreb in 1944, her family moved to Pula in 1947, where she finished high school.
[1] Girardi-Jurkić went on to graduate from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb in 1968, majoring in archeology and English.
In 1992 she was appointed Minister of Education, Culture and Sport and held the post until 1994, when she was named Croatia's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO.
[2] In 2001 she briefly returned to the Archeological Museum of Istria before going on to head the International Research Centre for Archaeology Brijuni-Medulin.
Her primary interest is the study of archeological sites from classical antiquity around Istria.