János Bali graduated from Fazekas Mihály Secondary Grammar School in Budapest in 1988. He completed his university studies at the Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), earning degrees in Ethnography in 1995 and Cultural Anthropology in 1997. In 1994, supported by a Tempus scholarship, he spent a semester studying anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. He obtained his PhD at ELTE in 2003 with summa cum laude distinction.

His first workplace was the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) Research Institute for Ethnography from 1995 to 1999. Since 1999, he has been teaching at ELTE’s Institute of Ethnography, currently holding the position of habilitated Associate Professor, department head, and doctoral program leader. He has been a staff member of the National Institute for Strategic Research since its foundation in 2013 and has served as its Research, Strategic and Coordination Director since 2016.

He is an elected member of the MTA Ethnology Committee, Secretary General of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society, Vice President of the Hungarian Cultural Anthropology Society, a member delegated by ELTE to the Cultural Heritage Committee, and a member of the Family Studies Professional College at the Kopp Mária Institute for Demography and Families (KINCS). He has been honored with the MTA Bolyai Plaque and the János Jankó Award of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society.