Elena Vagnoni is a faculty member at the Mechanical Engineering Institute of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Head of Research at the EPFL Technology Platform for Hydraulic Machines. She graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnic of Milan in 2013 and obtained her PhD in Mechanics from EPFL in 2018. Before her current position, she was a research assistant fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a guest scientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She serves as a Swiss expert for the International Energy Agency Hydropower Technology Cooperation Programme and as Vice-Coordinator of the European Energy Research Alliance Joint Programme on Hydropower. Elena has led several research projects and industrial collaborations, including XFLEX HYDRO, the largest EU-funded project on hydropower, and HydroLEAP, a demonstration pilot project funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. Her research focuses on the experimental investigation and predictive modelling of flow phenomena and fluid-structure interactions in hydraulic machines. These activities have broad applications, particularly in enhancing the design and operation of hydraulic machinery and reinforcing the competitiveness of hydropower technology to support power system decarbonization amid climate change challenges.