A magna cum laude graduate of Hamilton College, Papkova received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Georgetown University. She has taught there, at George Washington University, and at Central European University. She has also held academic fellowships at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, and the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University in Japan. Papkova is the author of The Orthodox Church in Russian Politics (Oxford University Press, 2011),[2] a critically acclaimed study of state-church relations in post-Soviet Russia,[3][4][5] and numerous scholarly articles in academic journals. She has been a regular contributor to The Revealer,[6] a gazette of religion and international affairs issues, and is actively involved in the world of Russian Orthodox Church music.
^"The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics, by Irina Papkova, Oxford University Press: New York and Woodrow Wilson Center Press: Washington, DC, 2011, xiii + 265 pp. US$65.00, ISBN 978 0 199 79114 9 (hardback)". Religion. 42: 327–330. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2011.623108. S2CID144900693.