Elena is a senior lecturer (Associate Professor) in Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Alicante (UA) and a senior researcher at the Molecular Nanotechnology Laboratory (Nanomol) of the UA, where she coordinates the Photoactive Materials group. Elena has a degree in Chemistry from the UA (2001) and a PhD in Materials Science from the University of the Basque Country (2006, Extraordinary PhD Award). She did her first postdoctoral stay at the Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon (France). In 2009, she joined the Nanomol group at the UA with a Juan de la Cierva contract (National R&D&I Plan). Since then, she keeps developing her teaching and research at the UA Inorganic Chemistry Dpt., , in which she teaches in the area of Inorganic Chemistry and carry out the tutoring of trainee students, the co-direction of Master's Thesis (4) and Doctoral Thesis (4, 1 of them in progress) and the supervision of doctor! al research staff. In 2011 she undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Marseille (France, group of Professor Gigmes, PhD), which she combined with her teaching duties at the UA. In the period 2017-2021, she had a five-year contract as a Distinguished Researcher at the UA, in the framework of the Talent Retention and Recruitment Programme (three researchers per year), until securing a permanent position as senior lecturer (Associate Professor) in October 2021.

Her research activity is focused on the preparation of heterogeneous (photo)catalysts, mainly in the synthesis and characterization of photoactive hybrid materials for applications in photocatalysis (wastewater treatment), energy efficiency (photoluminescence) and photovoltaics. She has published 66 articles in scientific journals indexed in the JCR (most of them in Q1, 2600 citations, index h 23, Scopus, May 2023). She also hods a national patent, 29 book chapters (25 of them in the area of Teaching Innovation in Science) and the coedited two books with Wiley-VCH ('Chemistry Education: Best Practices, Opportunities and Trends' and 'The Chemical Element. Chemistry's Contribution to Our Global Future'). During her scientific career she has participated in 43 research projects in the area of Materials Science (eight European, 11 from the National R&D&I Plan of the Spanish MINECO, and 24 regional, nine as PI), 16 technology transfer contracts (four as PI) and 18 Teac! hing Innovation projects (two as PI). Much of her research has been disseminated in more than 120 contributions to conferences, most of them international.

She has the I3 Certification and three 6-year research periods (ANECA). She is also an external evaluator of the Marie-Curie Individual Fellowships program (H2020), of the National R&D Plan of the MICINN, expert evaluator of R&D projects according to RD1432/2003 and a peer reviewer for a good number of journals in the area of Materials Science (Q1 and Q2). She is a member of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) and the Association of Women Researchers and Technologists (AMIT).