Elena spent her early childhood in Ukraine, the Western part, where she attended preschool and saw the very first snow in her life. Shabliy is a Ukrainian-Jewish last name. Elena is an Interdisciplinary researcher. She received her Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Tulane University in 2016. In 2009, she also received a Master of Liberal Arts from Tulane. In 2005, she earned her BA (as well as an MA equivalent) with high honors and from Moscow State University. Dr. Shabliy was a visiting researcher at Columbia University, NYU, Harvard University, and Boston University. In 2018, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard.