Elena is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Amsterdam (MInt) and a visiting scholar at the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis for the academic year 2026-2027. Previously, Elena was a Dissertation Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the recipient of the Econ JM Best Paper Award from the European Economic Association and the UniCredit Foundation. Elena received her PhD from Boston College in 2026. Elena's research lies at the intersection of macroeconomics and labor economics, focusing on how household heterogeneity and search frictions interact to shape inequality and inform macroeconomic policy. Elena approaches these questions by combining empirical analysis of rich microdata with quantitative models, and especially search and matching models and heterogeneous agents models.