Elena Adasheva is an early-career Polar social scientist, anthropologist, and visual artist, committed to fostering interdisciplinary collaborations and intercultural dialogue in Polar research and education.
Research Interests: environmental humanities; environmental and phenomenological anthropology; interdisciplinary studies of light and dark; visual anthropology; anthropology of infrastructure, electricity, and energy; anthropology and history of Polar expeditions and Polar science; museum studies; ethnographic and creative nonfiction writing
Regional Interests: Polar Regions (the Arctic and Antarctic), Siberia
Elena is currently a PhD Candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at Yale University. In 2024–2025, she served as a Graduate Writing Fellow at Yale’s Graduate Writing Lab and as a Part-Time Acting Instructor for an undergraduate humanities seminar. She is also a 2024–2025 IASC–PA2F Fellow with the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation (PA2F). Previously, she was a Visiting Scholar at New York University during the 2023–2024 academic year.
Elena’s current ethnographic research focuses on light and dark in the Polar regions. Her dissertation, based on nine months of fieldwork in the Siberian Arctic, explores human–environment relations and urban infrastructure. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the American Councils for International Education. Her second research interest concerns the history and practice of polar exploration and science.
Elena has served on the board of USAPECS, the United States national committee of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS). In 2022, she represented APECS at the EU-PolarNet webinar “Who Owns the Arctic? — An Introduction to Arctic Governance” alongside Volker Rachold, head of the German Arctic Office at the Alfred Wegener Institute. She also served as a grant application reviewer on the Icelandic Research Fund’s expert panel for social sciences, law, and educational sciences.
Elena has received several fellowships, including the Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution and the Eva Kastan Grove Fellowship from the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute in New York. She holds an MPhil in Sociocultural Anthropology from Yale University and a B.A. in Anthropology and Studio Art from Hunter College of the City University of New York, where she was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar.
Elena is a founder of the Polar Research and Education Library (PREL), a special library focusing on social sciences and humanities of the Polar regions.
Elena is a member of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and two UArctic Thematic Networks: Arctic Cultures and History (ARCH) and Arctic and Northern Governance.