[2] Klenova studied to become a professor and later on worked as a member of the Council for Antarctic Research of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

In 1949 Klenova became a senior research associate at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

Her work included analyses of seabed geology in the Atlantic Ocean and the Antarctic, and in the Caspian, Barents and White Seas.

At that time women were rarely allowed to venture on land and had to rely on their male colleagues to collect and bring back data samples.

In between these two voyages she worked at Mirny, a Russian base on the Queen Mary Coast (which is shared by Australian and Polish Research Stations).