Irma (Indriūnaitė) Šidiškienė was born on September 16, 1962, in Alytus. She earned a History degree at Vilnius University. In 2000, she defended Doctoral thesis on Lietuvių moterų drabužiai: tautiškumo raiška XIX a. pabaigoje – XX a. pirmoje pusėje (The clothes of Lithuanian women: the expression of nationality at the end of XIX c. – the first half of XX c.) and earned a Doctorate in Humanitarian Sciences from Vytautas Magnum University. She worked at the National Museum of Lithuania, and since 1989, she has worked in the Ethnology division at Lithuanian Institute of History. Since 2001, she has worked as a research fellow. She has published several studies and articles about the expression of nationality through clothes, identity, alternation of culture, the customs of life cycle and other questions.

Her works include:
Lietuvių XIX a. antrosios – XX a. pirmosios pusės įkapės. (The Lithuanian shroud of the second half of XIX century to the first half of XX century.)
Lietuvos istorijos metraštis: 1991 metai. (The annals of Lithuanian history: the year 1991) Vilnius, 1993, p.58-72
Lietuvininkių apranga XVII – XX a. pirmojoje pusėje (tradicija ir retrospekcija) (The outfit of Lietuvinink women in the XVII century to the first half of the XX century: tradition and retrospection) Lietuvininkų kraštas. (Lietuvininks land – Kaunas: Litterae universitatis, 1995, p.547-595)
Tautiniai drabužiai lietuvių kultūroje (XIX a.pab. – XX a. 4 dešimtmetis) (The National costume in Lithuanian culture from the end of XIX century to the 4th decade of XX century),
Amatas ir kūryba”. Lietuvos etnologija (“Trade and creation” Lithuanian ethnology – t.2, Vilnius: Pradai, 1997, p. 210-315)
Lietuvės nuotakos simboliai Europos šalių kontekste. Realijų ir prasmių kaita XIX-XX a. (The symbols of Lithuanian bride in the context of European countries. The alternation of realia and meanings in XIX-XX centuries –Lituanistica., 2002, Nr. 4 (52), p. 70-98)
Simboliniai veiksmai lietuvių XIX a. II pusės – XX a. I pusės vestuvių apeigose. Kartografinis tyrimas. (Symbolic acts in the Lithuanian wedding ceremony from the second part of XIX century to the first part of XX century. Cartographic research)
Lietuvos etnologija: socialinės antropologijos ir etnologijos studijos (Lithuanian ethnology: the studies of social anthropology and ethnology 2003, 3 (12), p. 31-58)
Lietuvių tradicinių piršlybų struktūros pokyčiai XX a. II pusėje (Changes in Lithuanian traditional courtship structure in the second half of the 20th century, Lituanistica, 2004, t. 57, Nr. 1, p. 54-66)

The photo is from the personal archive of the author.