Iva Lopižić was born in Zagreb, the Republic of Croatia, 11 February 1988. She finished a grammar school (general course) in Dubrovnik in 2006. She graduated law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb in 2011. During her studies, she was a demonstrator at the Department of General Theory of Law and State, the Department of Roman Law, and the Department of Administrative Science. In the academic year 2012/2013, she enrolled in the post-graduate doctoral study Public Law and Public Administration at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. In 2017 she defended her doctoral dissertation on the topic The Impact of Local Self-Government Capacity on Territorial State Administration under the mentorship of full professor with tenure Ivan Koprić.

Since March 2012, she has been working as an assistant, since March 2018 as a postdoctoral student, and since May 2022 as an assistant professor at the Department of Administrative Science, Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb. In October 2018, she obtained the scientific title of a research associate in the scientific field of social sciences – the field of law. Since the beginning of her employment, she has actively participated in classes, seminars and exams in the courses held by the Department of Administrative Science at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, the Study Centre for Public Administration and Public Finance, and the Study Centre for Social Work. During 2018 and 2019, she performed administrative tasks for the Institute of Public Administration.

She is a member of the Institute of Public Administration and the Central Eastern European Society of Administrative Sciences. She has been a member of the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences since February 2019. She is an author and co-author of more than thirty scientific and professional papers and has participated in conferences in the country and abroad. She has participated in four projects. She was a member of the organizing committee of the domestic scientific and professional meeting Normalization of the Status of Public Servants – a Solution or a Trap, and she is the co-editor of the proceedings of this meeting. She won the Eugen Pusić Award for the work of the best young scientist in 2019 with her work The Role of Deconcentrated State Administration: From Integrative and Implementation to Coordinative-Planning Role. Her areas of scientific interest include deconcentration and decentralization, performance of public affairs in territorial units, local self-government, inspection supervision and civil servants.

She is registered in the Register of Scientists of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia under registration number 334290. She speaks English and Italian actively, and French passively.