Elena provides academic and administrative leadership for the Summer Language Institute at Penn State. She is also the Penn State coordinator for the Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship program, administered by the U.S. Department of Education, and for the Big Ten Academic Alliance CourseShare program, which allows students to take courses in less commonly taught languages across the BTAA network. Her research interests focus on the intercultural aspects of language education and on global citizenship education.

Websites:

Language Institute at Penn State

Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship program

Big Ten Academic Alliance CourseShare

Education:

• • Ph.D., Educational Theory and Policy, and Comparative and International Education, Pennsylvania State University

• • M.A. in English, Sofia University, Bulgaria

• • M.A. in Russian, Sofia University, Bulgaria (Specialization in theory and history of culture)