Elena Orlando is an astrophysicist. She is currently Associate Professor at the University of Trieste. She held the academic position of Senior Research Scientist at Stanford University, and she has been an Instructor for Stanford Continuing Studies for many years.  
She has led several international scientific collaborations and plays a crucial role in defining future NASA and ESA space missions. She has published more than 270 peer-reviewed articles and has accrued over 60,000 citations that places her among highly cited researchers. As a member of the Fermi collaboration in 2011 she received the Bruno Rossi Prize. Elena was also awarded the Marie Curie Early Stage Training fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Munich, Germany, and the Leonardo da Vinci European fellowship installed at the Julius-Maximilians University of Wuerzburg, Germany. After earning her Master's Degree in Physics at the University of Trieste, Prof. Orlando received her PhD in Physics in 2008 from the Technical University of Munich with highest distinction under the International Max Planck Research School Program. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, and in 2010 she moved to Stanford University.
Prof. Orlando’s research focuses on the discovery and explanation of the origin of gamma rays and cosmic rays in the Universe. She has theorized and discovered for the first time that the Sun continuously emits gamma rays. She is also known for her original method to study the Milky Way by analyzing and connecting various kinds of data and by developing advanced theories to interpret them.
She is Editor of Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, Editor of Frontiers in Physics, and Member of the American Astronomical Society.

Prof. Orlando is chair of the Young ISSNAF Committee of the ISSNAF Board and a co-founder of the ISSNAF Bay Area Chapter.