Alena Govorounova is a scholar of religion and culture specializing in linguistics, cultural semiotics, and comparative religious studies. She earned her degrees in Japanese studies and linguistics at the Far Eastern State University (Russia) and completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at Osaka University. She has taught at several universities in Japan, including Kansai University and Osaka University, and has been affiliated with the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture as a research associate. Her research focuses on religion, spirituality and the supernatural imagination, exploring how human beings construct meaning across cultures through religious symbols, narratives, and experiences. She is particularly interested in the dialogue between religion and science, and in how religious and philosophical frameworks inform ethical and bioethical reasoning. In her teaching, she takes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach, inviting students to consider questions of religion, culture, and human existence from multiple perspectives.