Zoran Malbaša was born on March 6, 1999. He graduated from Kistanje Primary School in 2014 and enrolled that same year in high school in Zagreb at SPOG KKB. In 2018, following high school, he joined the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology. From 2022 to 2024, he served as a demonstrator for laboratory exercises at the Department of Physical Chemistry. In 2022, he began his graduate studies, during which he co-authored a paper in the prestigious Journal of Biological Macromolecules. He also engaged in various extracurricular activities, including revising the undergraduate Chemistry and Materials Engineering curriculum and competing in the BEST Engineering Competition, where his team secured second place. During his graduate program, he was awarded an Erasmus scholarship for a professional internship at Universitat Politècnica de València's Center for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, under the mentorship of Prof. Gloria Gallego Ferrer. He received the Vjera Marjanović Krajovan Award for outstanding graduate students.

Zoran's academic career commenced in 2024 through the "Project for the Development of Young Researchers' Careers – Education of New Doctors of Science," funded by the Croatian Science Foundation. He is presently employed as a research assistant at the Department of Inorganic Chemical Technology and Non-Metals, focusing on developing biomaterials for bone tissue engineering applications.

Since 2014, he has been actively practicing traditional karate under the Japan Karate Association (JKA).