Elena Gruzdeva

Elena Gruzdeva is the CEP Workshop Dean for F-1 Student Advising: Intermediate. Elena was born and raised in Russia where she received a BA/MA in foreign language and literature (English) and taught English as a Second Language. She first came to the U.S. in 1993 as a J-1 exchange student and then in 1995 as an F-1 international student. She holds an MS in information science from Indiana University. She started her career in the field of international education at the end of 2003 at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, as an international student adviser and then assistant director of the international services office. In 2009, Elena started working as an international student and scholar adviser at the University of Michigan International Center, Ann Arbor, MI. She was advising the population of approximately 7,000 international students and scholars on all aspects of F and J visas, later adding H-1B processing to her duties. From August 2015 to September 2017, Elena worked at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts as an associate director. She was managing the area of the office responsible for providing advising and processing of all employment-related requests for international students, as well as services for all J-1 scholars, for the population of about 13,000 international students and scholars. In October 2017, she joined the Carnegie Mellon University office of international education as associate director of foreign student and scholar services.