Affiliation: University of Bergen
Keywords: History of Technology and Science, Economic Development, Food, Food Security, Natural Resources, Chemistry, Eastern Europe, Cold War
Full profile: Elena is associate professor of modern European economic history at the Institute of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies, and Religion at the University of Bergen. She completed her PhD in Social Sciences (Economic and Social History) at the University of Helsinki in 2017. She has gained experience working as a research fellow at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg and as a lecturer and assistant professor at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg.
Her first monograph, The Green Power of Socialism: Wood, Forest, and the Making of Soviet Industrially Embedded Ecology, was published in 2024 by MIT Press. The book critically reconsiders the environmental history of the Soviet Union by foregrounding engineers’ perspectives on nature. She has also published articles in Technology and Culture, Contemporary European History, Journal of Social History, Heritage and Society, and other leading journals. Her research has been supported by the Kone Foundation, the Research Council of Norway, and other funders.
Elena’s current book project focuses on scientific responses to food shortages and malnutrition in contemporary history. It examines the creation of synthetic food and the role of chemistry in addressing food insecurity.
Since 2016, Elena has been actively involved in professional networks and scholarly societies. From 2016 to 2022, she served as a member of the Management Committee and co-coordinator of the group on natural resources, environment, and technology within the Tensions of Europe Network for the History of Technology. From 2019 to 2021, she was Secretary of the European Society for Environmental History. She is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Society for the History of Technology (2025–2027) and a board member of the journal Environment and History (2024–2027).
As a member of YAE, Elena engages with issues such as the future of open science in the age of artificial intelligence and the place of transnational history in contemporary academia.