Elaine joined the National University of Ireland Galway in July 2000, having worked for a number of years in marketing and product management roles in companies such as Siemens Limited, Unilever, SmithKline Beecham and Boots Healthcare. She completed her PhD, titled ‘Service Employee Performance and Brand Building’ at the University of Birmingham, UK.  

Her research is in the area of Branding.  She is particularly interested in brand advocacy and sabotage, and exploring people's (employees' and customers') relationships with brands.  

In ongoing research on internal branding, she has explored the role of the front line employee as brand builder, and identified antecedents to brand sabotage in 'job for life' environments.  She is working with Dr Mike Hogan (NUI Galway School of Psychology)  on further sabotage research adopting a Collective Intelligence methodology.  Prior to this, she has identified barriers to internal brand building, and explored the influence of leadership and commitment on brand adoption and sabotage in retail banking.  Her work was published in international peer-reviewed journals, and adopted in management interaction sessions at the Universita della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland, and in a 'Growing Brands through Recession' Masterclass for business leaders at NUI Galway. 

In other research, she is investigating the influence of social networks on consumer brand relationships.  She is currently examining the influence of the network structure (tie strength and homophily) on consumers' use of self-expressive brands, brand engagement and consumer advocacy (word of mouth, brand acceptance and brand forgiveness).

Elaine is also working on a large-scale European project to investigate brand building in the Banking sector, in a research collaboration with Aston University (UK) and the University of Zaragoza (Spain).

To date, Elaine has published her research in high ranked journals such as the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Services Marketing, the Service Industries Journal and the Journal of Brand Management. She is also co-author of ‘Creating Powerful Brands’ (4^th Edition) with Professors Leslie de Chernatony and Malcolm McDonald.   Elaine has also presented her work at leading international conferences including EMAC, Frontiers in Services, and the Thought Leaders International Conference in Brand Management. 

Her research is, in part, supported by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and the NUI Galway Millennium Fund.  She has also worked with graduate students to achieve 100% success in applying for IRC funding for PhD study, and is a mentor for IRC applicants within the J. E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics.

Her research in branding led to the development of two taught marketing modules: Brand Management at undergraduate level, and Strategic Brand Management for the MSc Marketing degree. 

Elaine is an Editorial Team member for a special issue of the Journal of Business Research on Brand Management, with Professor Bill Merrilees of Griffith University, Australia.  She is also an invited member of the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Product and Brand Management, with Editors Cleopatra Veloutsou (University of Glasgow) and Francisco Guzman (University of North Texas).

She is the National Representative for EMAC in Ireland (2013 - 2015).  She is also a member of the steering committee for the Thought Leaders International Conference in Brand Management at the Università della Svizzera italiana.  

She is a member of EMAC and a graduate member of the Marketing Institute of Ireland.