Irina Mikaelian was born and raised in Moscow, where she received her first university degree from Moscow State University, specializing in Romance (French and Italian) Languages. After graduation, she taught French and Italian at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. In the early 90s, she also worked as a journalist for an independent newspaper, writing about various educational systems around the world.

She then spent ten years in France, teaching the Russian language and related subjects at several French universities. During this time, she earned a Ph.D. in Russian and General Linguistics from the University of Provence in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Since 2004, she has been teaching at Penn State, where she teaches all levels of Russian language, as well as courses on Russian culture and film. Her research interests include Russian grammar and semantics, as well as second language acquisition.

She is currently the Director of Russian Undergraduate Studies and serves as the advisor for the Penn State Russian Studies Club.