Elena Ateva, JD, is the Deputy Director of Heat, Health and Gender at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center.

Throughout her career, Elena has advocated for improved women’s rights and reproductive health. She has contributed to global advocacy efforts to strengthen the midwifery workforce, to promote respectful healthcare for women and girls, and to prevent gender-based violence. She is an attorney and human rights advocate, and she brings over two decades of experience working on gender-responsive programming.

Prior to joining Arsht-Rock, she worked with the White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) as their Advocacy Manager. She also served as the Eastern Europe Legal Advocacy Coordinator for Human Rights in Childbirth and later joined the board of the organization. She has also previously worked as an attorney, a human rights advocate, an Eastern European legal advocacy coordinator, and as the Maternal Health Lead for USAID Health Policy Plus. Elena has contributed to key reports, such as The State of the World’s Midwifery 2021 report.

Elena Ateva received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and German Language from Luther College in 2003 and her Juris Doctorate from Mitchell Hamline School of Law in 2006.