Elona Vaisnys was appointed by President Jimmy Carter Commissioner to serve as Commissioner on a Presidential Commission tasked with making recommendations to the President for improving United States preparedness in international trade, national security, and diplomacy.

She has worked in the Connecticut Governor’s Office of Policy and Management, had a by-lined column on civic activism the New Haven Register (circulation 100,000) and in the Yale Alumni Magazine (international), wrote 900 radio scripts and produced a radio show on health/medicine for a hospital and was a consultant for a program on health on Connecticut Public TV, she also managed a medical information-by-telephone service that was used by 3,000 to 12,000 callers a month.

She has published opinion editorials in the New York Times, New Haven Register, Connecticut Post, Christian Science Monitor. She served as the editor for Yale University’s five engineering departments for 22 years.

Vaisnys served on the U.S. Lithuanian American Community board of directors and on its national Executive Committee and for three years travelled to Lithuania for bi-annual meetings of the Lithuania’s Parliament-World Lithuanian Community Commission.

Vaisnys has served as national coach for the League of Women Voters of the United States, was a board member of the League of Women Voters of Connecticut, and has held various leadership positions on the local level.

Elona Vaisnys studied at the Université Laval in Québec, Canada, at the Sorbonne in Paris, and has an M.A. from Boston College and a Ph.D. in French literature from Yale University. Since 1993, she has been performing with the Salt and Pepper Gospel Singers.