Director of Research Innovation
Phone: 773.702.7158
In her role as Director of Research Innovation at the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories (OVPRNL), Elena works with faculty members to start ambitious, risky, and open-ended inquiries that push the boundaries of their discipline. She aims to provide logistical, administrative and financial support to early-stage projects that have a transformative intellectual potential.
She has had a variety of experiences that have prepared her for this role – she co-founded several non-profit organizations in Russia, worked with startup companies in the US, and received a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. After a postdoc fellowship at the University of Chicago, focusing on behavioral and brain-imaging work in conceptual development across life spans, she worked at the Booth School of Business.
