In 2000, Elena Kokanova graduated from Pomor State University (specialty: Philology).

In 2017, she graduated from Northern (Arctic) Federal University (specialty: Speech Therapy).

In 2000, she started her career path as a lecturer. While studying she started working as a translator and interpreter. In 2005, she got a PhD degree in Linguistics. The theme of her thesis is “English sentence adverbs in the cognitive-discursive aspect”.

She has been in charge of the Department of Translation Technology and Practice at “AKM-West” since its establishment in 2018. She is the scientific director of the master’s programs “Computer-Assisted and Machine Translation Technology” (Linguistics) and “Computational Linguistics” (Applied Computer Science). She is a member of the Union of Translators of Russia and the Russian Cognitive Linguists Association. She has more than 75 published research papers. In 2020, the Russian Association of Translator and Interpreter Trainer awarded her as the Best Translator and Interpreter Trainer of the Year.