M.S. (2003) and a PhD (2008) in Social Psychology of Health (ISCTE-IUL). Associate Professor with Habilitation (Agregação) in Psychology  at the Department of Psychology of Iscte, where she started teaching in 1999. She is currently co-coordinator the multidisciplinary research group "Societal Health" of the SocioDigitalLab for Public Policies. She is the former Director of the Psychology Department, and was Vice-Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Director of the Master in Social Psychology of Health, Vice-Director of the Centre for Social Research and Intervention (CIS-IUL) and Coordinator of the Research Group Health for All (H4A). Fascinated by the (social) mind-body relations, she has dedicated much attention to such issues in her teaching and research. Her main research interests have generally revolved around social disparities in health and the role of psychosocial influences on chronic illness adaptation processes. She has mainly explored these issues in relation to a particular health-related topic-(chronic) pain. More specifically, her current main lines of research aim to: (1) understand the psychosocial processes accounting for health-care professionals (gender and social status) biases in the assessment and treatment of a patients pain; (2) investigate the role of interpersonal dynamics in pain experiences, namely, pain-related social support interactions for the promotion of functional autonomy among (older) adults with (chronic) pain. In her research she uses a wide range of quantitative (e.g., experimental), qualitative (e.g., grounded-theory) and knowledge synthesis methodologies (e.g., scoping and systematic reviews, meta-analysis). Currently, her research interests have been moving from the investigation of psychosocial processes underlying health and illness, to the development of novel psychosocial interventions to promote chronic illness adaptation and/or health care professionals' gender awareness. She has coordinated 11 funded projects (6 contracts and 5 grants) and collaborated as a researcher or invited scientific/research fellow in several other national (n=3), and international projects (n=8 of which 3 EU funded). She has over 80 scientific publications (books, book chapters, articles), of which > 45 papers in high impact journals (e.g., PAIN, Health Psychology) and has been an invited speaker at important international scientific meetings (e.g., World and European Pain Conferences). Several scientific awards have recognized her scientific contributions, namely, the Research Merit Award of the Portuguese Health Psychology Society (2008), Young Researcher Award of the Portuguese Psychological Association (2013), Best Paper Awards by the Portuguese Association for the Development of Pain Therapies (ASTOR) and the Grüenenthal PAIN Prize 2016. She has provided scientific assessment services to national (e.g., Portuguese National Funding Agency, Portuguese Associations for the Study of Pain) and international organizations (e.g., ERA-NET, Dutch Cancer Society, European Pain Federation). She is regularly involved in outreach activities, e.g., healthcare professionals' training, development of health-related guidelines, consultancy services to national (pain units, pharmaceutical industry, patient associations) and international organizations (e.g., Childhood Cancer International). She is currently a member of IASP Early Career Presidential Task Force (since 2021), of the Pain Psychology Working Group of the Portuguese Chapter of the European Federation of Pain (EFIC; since 2020) and has been the co-Chair of the Psychology Track of the 2nd EFIC Virtual Pain Education Summit (2021).

PhD in Psychology (2020, Iscte-IUL) and MSc in Community Psychology and Child Protection (2010, Iscte-IUL). Currently, I am a researcher at the Center for Psychological Research and Social Intervention (CIS/Iscte), working on the project "All4Children - The Integrated Family Fostering Model (MIAF) to promote the quality of fostering and protection practices in Portugal" (funded by FCT). My research interests have focused on maladaptive parenting, namely neglect, and the explanatory mechanisms of emotional and cognitive deprivation in parent-child interactions, particularly in contexts of poverty. I also have professional experience in intervention with children, young people, and families in the child protection system.

Cristina Camilo is an Invited Assistant Professor at ISCTE-IUL, Executive Manager of Iscte_Saúde and Invited Researcher at CIS-IUL. She holds a PhD in Psychology, and develops research in the area of the impact of social relationships on health and well-being, namely on the processes that mediate this association.  She also studies the interpersonal processes of regulation of negative emotions in situations of illness. She is coordinator of the Global Diagnostic Study, developed in collaboration with Childhood Cancer International (CCI) and co-coordinator of the program developed with SICAD in the context of the program "Eu e os Outros".  

PhD in Sociology, in Theory and Method. Full Professor in the Department of Social Research Methods at ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon. Director of School of Sociology and Public Policies. Director of the Postgraduate in Data Analysis in Social Sciences. Expert in methodological issues and quantitative data analysis. Senior researcher at the Center for the Research and Study of Sociology (CIES-ISCTE-IUL). Area of research is focused inside the quantitative and multivariate methods for categorical and quantitative variables, mainly methods of interdependence and dependence; multilevel models; longitudinal models; measurement models, mediation and moderation models; estimation with bootstrapping. She teaches several courses of multivariate statistics and advanced data analyses on Master and PhD Programs. She has coordinated research projects and she has participated in several research national and international projects, developing her skills of advanced data analysis with quantitative methods. She has published several books and several articles in Portugal and abroad.

  Alexandra Ferreira-Valente is interested in the positive orientation of health psychology, pain assessment and management, effects and mechanisms of psychological pain interventions and cross-cultural mixed-method research. She is particularly focused on understanding how the association between the meaning attributed to pain, beliefs and coping responses and psychological and physical adjustment do chronic pain are mediated and moderated by culture in people with chronic pain from different countries and cultural backgrounds. She is also dedicated to the study of the mechanisms explaining the effects of self-management strategies and psychological and spiritual interventions on the adjustment to life in healthy and not healthy people. In her research work, she combines cognitive-behavioral and existentialistic approaches with the overarching and long-term aim of helping people better manage different stressors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic pain, and their effects on people’s lives.

Born in Ovar in 1959, she graduated in Psychology at the University of Lisbon. Since 1982 she has developed her academic career at Iscte, where she is Full Professor of Social Psychology, Co-coordinator of SocioDigitalLab for Public Policy. She develops a wide activity in teaching and scientific orientation.  Her research activity focuses on the application of Social Psychology to health and environmental issues, and is reflected in numerous scientific publications. She is the author of the book "We and others: The power of social ties" published by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation. She was president of the Portuguese Psychological Association and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of European Social Survey. She is Honorary Professor at the University of Bath, a Member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences and in 2025 was awarded with the career prize of the Portuguese Psychological Association.

Sibila Marques has a degree in Psychology from the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Lisbon and a PhD in Social Psychology from ISCTE-IUL - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. She is a researcher at the Center for Research and Social Intervention and teaches as an Assistant Professor in MSc courses at ISCTE-IUL. She is currently the Director of the Master in Social Psychology of Health. Her work has focused on the application of Social and Community Psychology to the understanding of themes with a relevant social impact, especially in the area of health and well-being of communities and individuals. In this sense she has developed work in two priority areas: Social Psychology of Aging and Social Psychology of the Environment. In this field she has presented her work in national and international congresses and public events, and has publications in journals with high impact in the scientific community. She has also developed activities in European and national projects in this field. She is currently part of the Eurage group (www.eurage.com) and has taken on the scientific coordination at ISCTE-IUL of the European projects SIforAGE (FP7) and INHERIT (H2020). She is also the author of the essay "Discrimination of the elderly" published by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation in 2011. She is also a frequent appearance in the media to discuss topics related with her subjects of research.