Elena Lasarte Navamuel holds a degree in Economics from the University of Cantabria. She then began her doctoral studies at the University of Oviedo within the program Economics and Sociology of Globalization, which held a Quality Mention, benefiting from a pre-doctoral scholarship from Banco Santander and the University of Oviedo. In 2014, she defended her doctoral thesis Coste de Vida en España a nivel espacial, earning an International Mention and a nomination for the Extraordinary Award. After defending her thesis, she joined the Universidad Católica del Norte in Chile as a teacher and researcher with a postdoctoral scholarship granted by the Chilean Government to attract doctors from other countries. Her postdoctoral stay in Chile lasted during the 2014/2015 academic year, where she taught Applied Microeconomics and Growth and Economic Development in the Master's in Regional Science.

In the 2015/16 academic year, she returned to Spain, specifically to the University of Extremadura, after winning a competition for a substitute professor position. At the University of Extremadura, she taught and researched for three academic years and obtained a position as Assistant Professor within the Department of Economics and the Area of Quantitative Methods, teaching Mathematics during that time.

She then returned to the University of Oviedo, where she currently holds a position as a Senior Lecturer. She has completed several stays abroad, all funded by competitive scholarships. Regarding predoctoral stays, she spent two months each year at the University of Illinois in 2012 and 2013. She completed a three-week stay at Aberystwyth University (Wales) in a Regional Economics training program funded by the European Commission's Erasmus programs. She then undertook a one-year postdoctoral stay in Chile. Additionally, she has attended numerous national and international conferences since her predoctoral stage, highlighting the World Congress of Regional Science, the European Congress of Regional Science, and the North American Congress of the same discipline. World Congress of Regional Science, el European Congress of Regional Science y el North American Congress de la misma disciplina.

Thanks to her international activity, she is part of the international network of researchers at the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory based at the University of Illinois. Regarding her publications, she has a total of 10, of which 8 are indexed in JCR and SJR, and 6 are in top-tier scientific journals (N1), encompassing the first and second quartiles of the JCR index, with 2 belonging to the first decile. All of them are reference journals in her research area, which is Regional and Urban Economics.