Elena H. Martínez-Lapiscina was born in 1982 in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. She earned a MD at University of Navarra School of Medicine in Pamplona, Spain in 2006. She won a Special Mention at the National Spanish Medical Degree Award Commission (2005-2006) by the Ministry of Education and Science, Spain. After achieving the first position in the national wide examination for accessing to a medical residency, she completed a neurology residency in 2012 in Pamplona Spain. In 2013, Elena H Martínez-Lapiscina received her PhD in Neurosciences & Cognition at the University of Navarra School of Medicine, Pamplona Spain. Finally, she obtained a MPH-Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, US in 2019.

As part of her academic career, she has worked as a neurologist and researcher (clinical and imaging) in Neurosciences Service in the Hospital Clinic – IDIBAPS of the University of Barcelona (2012-2019). She has also performed short stages in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (neuromuscular unit), University of California San Francisco (UCSF) (neuroimmunology and neuro-ophthalmology), Harvard School of Public Health (neuroepidemiology). She has published 71 articles and participated as PI or collaborator in more than 25 international and national projects pursuing the development of markers for easing drug development for CNS conditions.

Since 2019, she works as Topic Lead of Immune-mediated and rare neurological disorders and clinical neurologist in the Office of therapies for neurological and psychiatric disorders (H-NEU) in the Human Medicines (H-Division) in the European Medicines Agency (EMA).