Elena Zerfus was born in Bucharest in a communist Romania. Although she was a teenager when the regime ended, she has a clear memory of the terrible social, economic and political changes brought on by the communism. Elena earned a B.S. in Informatics (Computer Science and Economics) from Academia de Studii Economice, Bucharest. She is fluent in Italian, Spanish, and French in addition to English and her native Romanian. She worked in Paris with Telecom France as a Systems Developer. In 2000 she was recruited by Philadelphia Control Systems (PCS) and moved to US. For the past ten years she lives in Delaware and works at PCS where she established herself as a key employee.
She is the lead architect for a large scale real-time fleet vehicle tracking systems used in the US and South America. She has designed inventory management systems, offshore oil tanker loading/unloading systems, large scale robotics controls and cross-platform financial transaction applications. Elena’s responsibilities range from system conception to onsite deployment. Elena’s project responsibilities take her to different parts of the world, being exposed to different cultures. She accepts the challenge of working with demanding clients in high pressure situations. Due to her fluency in multiple languages and respected technical expertise she has been requested to be the “unofficial” liaison/mediator between contentious participants in multi-national project installations.
In 2009 she volunteered as web designer and webmaster for a statewide political campaign. In 2012 she volunteered as a mentor in the recently created DYLN (Delaware Youth Leadership Network) program. In February of 2013 she received her US Citizenship. Elena enjoys teaching karate to all ages. In September of 2017 she has achieved Master ranking (fourth degree black belt) in Tang Soo Do. Likely she is the only women in Delaware to reach this level.
Passionate about history and hand making traditions. She volunteers for the New Castle Historical Society as a guide to the society’s museums and town tours. Her goal is to preserve New Castle’s unique history and make it accessible and fun for everyone.
Elena received a US patent for her practical and fashionable phone case, “the PhoneSmitten.” This idea sprung out of her interest in hand making traditions. In November of 2017 she received the official notice of her patent award.