Elena is a researcher specialising in Indigenous peoples' rights and self-determination. Based at the School of Law at University College Cork, Ireland, her current work focuses on integrating Indigenous knowledge into global catastrophic risk governance. During her doctoral studies at the same university, she examined the language rights of Indigenous peoples in the Arctic. Prior to her doctoral research, Elena conducted studies on Arctic governance and Indigenous rights at the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland in Finland and Nord University in Norway.
Her areas of expertise include international law, global governance, Indigenous rights, human rights, and international relations. In addition to her academic work, Elena serves as an Advisor to the Board of the Arctic Youth Network (which spans Canada, the US, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia). She is also a researcher with the Ad-hoc Group 1 at the UNESCO International Decade for Indigenous Languages 2022-2032 and a co-founder of APECS-Ireland.