Elona came to the UK in 2005 to study her undergraduate degree in Human Sciences at the University of Sussex. This grounded her interdisciplinary education firmly across humanities, social and biological sciences.

Working as a Research Fellow at the University of Brighton, Elona developed research expertise in working across disciplinary and knowledge boundaries, examining critical social issues and questions of social solidarity and responsibility. In this role, she developed and co-led research projects with national and international community partners, led consultancy projects on community involvement and values-based approaches evaluation, worked to integrate concepts of sustainability within the UK higher education institutions and facilitated learning with undergraduate and postgraduate students.

In 2015-16 she was a Visiting Fellow at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

In addition to her academic work, she has also participated in local projects such as the Save the UBC Farm campaign, Community Eats project at UBC, University of Brighton Food Co-op, the Brighton and Sussex Universities Food Network, and served as a member of the board at the Brighton Peace and Environment Centre. Since completing her PhD she has contributed to setting up a transition urbanism project in south-west France.

After completing her doctorate on urban commoning projects in Europe, focusing on practices in London and Paris she took maternity leave. She is now an ESRC postdoctoral fellow funded through the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership.