Elena Denisova-Schmidt is a Privatdozentin at the University of St.Gallen (HSG), Switzerland. She has held academic appointments at Humboldt University of Berlin (2002–2007), the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2008), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) (2011), the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (2012, 2014), the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University (2013–2015), and the Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki (2015). She was a Research Fellow at the Center for International Higher Education (CIHE) at Boston College from 2015 to 2026 and a Visiting Professor at Shanghai University in 2025–2026. Before moving into academia, Elena Denisova-Schmidt worked at the VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation.