Meet ISSP’s newest member of the team, our Receptionist, Elena Totomanova!

Hello everyone,

My name is Elena Totomanova. I am from Bulgaria – a country in South-East Europe with beautiful mountains which I love, and passionate people. If I have to identify my-self with a culture I would definitely say that I am 100% under the charms of my native land. The other 100% are unequally distributed between the five other places where I have lived and which I am happy to bring in my heart – la Vallée de la Loire in France, the Catalan land where my husband is from, la petite ville de Fribourg in Switzerland, the traditional and at the same time economically/socially booming Beijing, and the green Atlanta. I have spent here only six months but I am already convinced that I like this place with its one-story wooden houses, unusual road system in which I have been lost so many times, summer lasting until end of October and, most importantly, warm-hearted people.

On my professional path, I have experienced different ways to make my contribution to the community – as a lawyer in the Bulgarian Antitrust Commission, working with asylum-seekers in Switzerland, implementing educational programs with UNESCO in China and helping the international students and scholars at Emory. My professional interests have taken different aspects but almost always have turned around the same thing – taking the challenge of globalization.

Out of work, my first passion is Argentine tango which I discovered surprisingly in the home-land of Tai-Chi. I still don’t know what I enjoy more – the dance itself or the creative, interesting people I meet through tango. Reading and travelling are certainly, for me, other ways to enjoy the beauty of life.