Elina Carpen is an assistant director at the Global Energy Center, where she focuses on primarily on energy geopolitics and climate and energy policy. Prior to her time at the Atlantic Council, Carpen worked as a market research analyst for a forestry carbon offset firm where she specialized in corporate environmental, social, and governance policy and US climate and environmental legislation. Carpen also spent time at the North Carolina (UNC) Piedmont Land Conservancy, where she worked on their legal team and supported state lobbying projects. Additionally, Carpen held an undergraduate fellowship at the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she supported research projects on climate law cases involving oil majors, as well as cases related to the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act.

Carpen holds a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she double majored in political science and history and completed a minor in sustainability studies. Carpen also completed an honors thesis in the UNC History Department that focused on Indigenous American environmental history.