Elena was not only jealous of those women who were better looking or more stylish than she, but of anyone with more education. At the end of her life, however, she was a PhD in chemistry, and was the author of many scholarly papers on the subject. However, the real story is that she paid off/coerced noted scientists to write her doctorate and other papers.
Those few who refused found themselves never receiving a promotion again or teaching classes in the provinces. Though it was an open secret that Elena Ceausescu never did any of her own work/research, no one, either within Romania or internationally, called her on it – she was the wife of the most powerful man in the country whose nation did millions of dollars in business internationally.
She was also the head of many different government departments having to do with the sciences. In her role as the head of the countries sciences, she gained a nickname, and not a flattering one: “Codoi,” which is the Romanian pronunciation of the abbreviation of CO². “CO” for “Carbon-Oxygen” and “doi”, the Romanian for “two”.