César Lima is an Associate Professor with Habilitation in the Department of Psychology at Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon. His research focuses on the psychology and neuroscience of music, voice and emotion (MUVE Lab). He addresses these topics by combining experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience approaches, in healthy individuals of all ages, in specialised populations (e.g., musicians), and in clinical populations (e.g., with neurological disorders). He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Emotion Review, Cerebral Cortex, Brain, Current Biology, Trends in Neurosciences, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, and Annual Review of Psychology. César Lima is on the Editorial Board of Scientific Reports (category Neuroscience) and Royal Society Open Science (category Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience). He has been invited to review papers for journals such as Psychological Bulletin, American Psychologist, or Nature Human Behavior, and grant applications for the Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, Czech Science Foundation Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Dutch Research Council.   Before joining Iscte, César Lima completed his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Porto (2011), was a Research Associate at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience - University College London (2012-2016), and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Porto (2016-2017). His work as principal investigator has been funded by the British Academy and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. At Iscte, he teaches cognitive psychology and neuroscience courses. He is also the director of the MSc in Emotion Sciences.    

Dr. Guerra holds a PhD in Social Psychology (2007), and she is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Psychological Research and Social Intervention (CIS_Iscte). She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Psychology, University of Delaware for two years, and later in 2010 she joined Cis_Iscte.  She is interested in intergroup relations, common identity and contact interventions to reduce discrimination and promote social change, as well as on intergroup approaches to collective narcissism, extremism, and hate speech. She is a Fellow of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI, Division 9 of the American Psychological Association). She coordinated several projects supported by competitive grants from the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT), the European Commission (European Fund for the Integration of non-EU immigrants, EIF, Citizens, Equality,  Rights and Values Programme - CERV), and La Caixa Foundation and participated in several others as a team member. Her research has been published in respectable journals in her field (e.g., Psych. Science;  Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, Political Psychology, Eur. J. of Soc. Psychology., J. Personality and Social Psychology, J. of Applied Social Psychology, Eur. J. of Personality, Journal of Social Issues) and chapters in edited peer-reviewed volumes (e.g., Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination), accumulating over 2000 citations. She actively integrates research into teaching activities, teaching in master programs in intercultural relations and social psychology, and supervising PhD and master students.  She is Associated Editor of Journal of Applied Social Psychology and served as a Guest Editor of the Special Issue, Unpacking the social psychology of populism, for the Journal of Theoretical and Social Psychology. She is currently a a member of the Executive Committee of the International Contact Research Network. She served as the Vice Director of CIS_Iscte from 2016-2020 and is a member of CIS_Iscte Scientific Commission (2021-25). She served as Vice-President of  the Scientific Council of ISCTE Knowledge & Innovation Center (2023-25) and she is currently a co-coordinator of the Thematic Line Global Governance (SocioDigital Lab for Public Policy).

Carla Moleiro is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at ISCTE - IUL. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA in 2003. Initially, she specialized in Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Lisbon and as a psychotherapist at the Portuguese Association of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. He has developed clinical and research work on complex disorders and dual diagnoses, personality disorders, and presently with immigrant, refugee, ethnic and sexual minority (LGBTI+) clients. She is currently a researcher at the Center for Research and Social Intervention (CIS), working on mental health and diversity, as well as clinical skills for individual and cultural diversity. Her work also includes issues of community psychology, ethics, intervention with at risk populations and child protection. 

I am a Cross-cultural Psychologist with a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (awarded in 2011). I joined the research centre Cis_ISCTE at the end of 2011 as a Marie Curie Research Fellow after a 1-year postdoc at the University of Kent, UK. I am an Assistant Professor at ISCTE since 2019.   I am very interested in the relation between the individual and the larger society and how characteristics of the social, cultural and physical environment are related to individuals´ well-being, moral beliefs and intergroup relations. As such, my work usually integrates theories and insights from different disciplines, such as Sociology, Anthropology, and Political Sciences (apart from Psychology).  My current research projects focus on age discrimination towards younger workers in different cultures as well as the issue of subtle discrimination (also referred to as microaggression) towards ethnic minorities in different societies.    I am teaching courses at Bachelor and Master level on research methods, (cross-)cultural psychology, and intercultural relations. From 2016 to 2021, I also coordinated the funded Erasmus Mundus programme “European Master in the Psychology of Global Mobility, Inclusion and Diversity in Society” (Global-MINDS) which is a joint master programme delivered by an international consortium of partner universities. Global-MINDS is currently coordinated by the University of Limerick and includes ISCTE-IUL, the University of Oslo and SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities as full partners.    I welcome any expressions of interest for Master thesis or PhD supervision on morality, cross-cultural comparisons, youngism and microaggressions (from an enactor and/or victim perspective).  

I completed my Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Iscte) in 2010. Since then, I have been mostly focused on my research career. Among other scientific production, I have (co-)authored severalinternational peer-reviewed papers and book chapters (e.g., The Oxford handbook of evolutionary psychology and romantic relationships). Most of this production was published in collaboration with international (e.g., Brighton and Sussex Medical School; Texas State University) and national research networks (e.g., Faculdade de Psicologia e Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra). My research recently received an Honorable Mention for Best Psychology Paper by The Journal of Sex Medicine, and I received an award from the Center for Open Science in 2018 for transparency and good practices in research. I have also pedagogic publications (e.g., how to improve scientific communication). During this time, I participated in national and international scientific events (oral and poster presentations), I was invited to talk about my research to broader audiences (e.g., Sexual Health Alliance), and took part in activities aimed at disseminating science to the general public (e.g., Social Observatory of the “la Caixa” Foundation; 90 Segundos de Ciência) and tackling social relevant social issues (e.g., prevent extremism and radicalization). I have also participated in several projects with competitive funding (e.g., Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, European Commission), I am currently the principal investigator of a “la Caixa” Foundation project and an individual project funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, and I have obtained funding from CIS-Iscte for various projects (most of which included the supervision of undergraduate and Master’s students).    Currently, my main research interests are focused on understanding: (a) if and how individual motives for security and pleasure shape sexual behaviors and sexual health practices and (b) the roots of social stigmatization against minority groups (e.g., individuals in consensual non-monogamous relationships; asexual individuals). Other research interests are linked with the work of my collaborators and/or students and include the role of sexual behaviors (e.g., pornography use) on relationship dynamics (e.g., sexual satisfaction); the impact of visual cues (e.g., emoji) for digital communication outcomes; the role of social support for individual and relationship functioning; or the development and validation of databases and instruments (e.g., image databases including facial expressions; development of new measurement instruments).   I have always been committed to the training of young researchers and students. My supervision experience includes several Master’s students, research fellows, and several research internees. I have also participated in multiple academic juries in different academic institutions, serving as Discussant or President. I currently (co-)supervise Ph.D. students (some of which received grants from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) and Master’s students. My supervision work has resulted in publications (e.g., Carvalho & Rodrigues, 2022) and presentations at scientific events (e.g., 2021 SSSS Annual Conference), and one of my students received the Best Student Manuscript Award 2022 from the International Academic of Sex Research. My teaching experience includes undergraduate and graduate courses, mostly related to interpersonal relationships (e.g., Person Perception and Interpersonal Relations; Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships: Social and Organizational Contexts), methods (e.g., Psychometrics), and research skills (e.g., Academic Competencies II; Research Seminar in Psychology - Advanced Methodologies). Other teaching experience include being an invited lecturer (e.g., ISMAT; Universidade de Évora) to teach undergraduate courses in different Psychology domains (e.g., Social Psychology) or to give methodological workshops (e.g., E-Prime; Qualtrics).   Lastly, I have experience in management and scientific positions. I am currently an elected member of the Scientific Committee at CIS-Iscte and over the years I have, among other activities, served as a member of the Scientific Committee for multiple scientific events, been part of the Editorial board of different scientific journals, reviewed funding applications, coordinated the Behavior, Emotion, and Cognition research group at CIS-Iscte, and served as the Vice-President of the Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia.

Diniz Lopes initiated his academic activities in 1997, being a Junior Researcher at Instituo de Ciências Socias, Universidade de Lisboa until 2000. At the same time, in 1998, he was hired by ISCTE-IUL where he developed his teaching and research activities. In 2007, he got his PhD in Social Psychology from the Departamento de Psicologia Social e das Organizações, Escola de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, ISCTE-IUL, Lisboa. He is presently, Associate Professor with Habilitation and Head of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities. Between 2010 and 2013 he was a post-doc fellow in the Universities Paris Ouest, Paris Descartes, Universidade do Porto. His present research interests focus on the analysis of interpersonal relationships, namely commitment, infidelity, derogation of alternatives, stay-leave behaviors and pornography use within romantic relationships; the relationships between humans and companion animals; as well as the application of statistical models to data analysis in Psychology. His works are published in different national and international scientific journals, such as Animals, Behavior Research Methods, PlosOne, The Journal of Sex Research, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, Personal Relationships, among others

Eunice Magalhães, PhD, is Assistant Professor at ISCTE and Full Researcher at CIS-Iscte - Centre for Research and Social Intervention. She is currently the Director of the Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and Deputy Director of the Department of Psychology. Between 2020 and 2022, she was Deputy Director of CIS-Iscte.    Eunice Magalhães holds a PhD in Psychology from ISCTE. She has led and collaborated on research projects focused on children's rights, child abuse and neglect, residential and foster care, as well as on the mental health of victims of violence (mostly adolescents and adults). Her work has been published in leading journals, books, and book chapters focused on topics such as supportive relationships in alternative care or child protection and children's rights. She regularly presents her work at national and international conferences and actively collaborates with national and international research teams.

Paula Castro is Full Professor of Psychology at ISCTE-IUL & a researcher at CIS-iscte. She holds a PhD in social and environmental psychology (ISCTE, 2000), and a degree in psychology (Univ-Lisboa,1987). Her research looks at the processes of meaning-making and communication involved in the reception of new laws and public policies - mainly environmental ones - developing a social psychology of legal innovation. She has mainly investigated how new laws and regulations governing climate action, biodiversity conservation, public participation or urban regeneration are received by the public (e.g., contested, accepted, negotiated) and the implications of this reception for social change. The studies, both quantitative and qualitative, often focus on (the asymmetric) relations between public and scientific experts/decision makers. Other areas of interest are people-place relations, local knowledge, social memory and the history of social psychological theories.  She coordinated and participated in several financed projects (FCT, EU) and supervised various PhD and Pos-Doc projects, with the resulting work published in international journals of high impact in the areas of social, political, environmental and community psychology, as well as environmental policy. She was Director of the Psychology Department (2008–2010), Director of the PhD program in Psychology (2010–2013), Director of the Masters in Studies of Environment and Sustainability (2015-19), Member of ISCTE's SC (2010-2014), and CIS-iscte SC (2016-19) and Director of CIS-iscte (2019-2021).

Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Coimbra. Associate Researcher at and Full Member of the Centre for Social Research and Intervention (CIS). Cocoordinator of the thematic line "Promoting Inclusion, Equality and Citizenship" of the SociDigitalLab for Public Policy. Coordinator of the project OVER-SEES - VET excellence leadership for twin transtion in European Islands (Erasmus + program; ref. 101193997) (2025/20229) Chair of the COST Innovators Grant Future Youth Information for Rural Areas (ref. CIG 18213) (FYI-R) (2024/2025). Chair of COST Action 18213 – Rural NEET Youth Network, funded by the European Commission, through the COST Association (2019-2024). Principal Investigator of the project Tr@ck-IN - Public employment services tracking effectiveness in supporting rural NEETs, funded by the Youth Employment Fund (EEA & Norway Grants) (2021-2024).  Member of the EU Rural Pact Coordination, promoted by the European Commission, as well as from the Pool of European Youth Researchers (PEYR), from the Council of Europe. Editorial board member of the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. My work focuses on a psychosocial analysis of the school-to-work transition, namely social inclusion, well-being, and access to education and decent jobs for vulnerable young people such as those Not in Employment, nor in Education or Training (NEET). I also dedicate my work to scientific advice for public policies in these areas, at regional, national and European levels.   I have experience in coordinating scientific teams to implement projects in public institutions, in Portugal Between 2004 and 2015 I also collaborated with several organizations and projects (Caritas da Ilha Terceira, Câmara Municipal de Angra do Heroísmo; ISCTE-IUL team responsible for supervising schools included in the Priority Territories for Educational Interventions - TEIP program) in the role of external advisor.    

Holds a degree in Clinical Psychology (University of Coimbra). She completed her Master’s and PhD in Social Psychology at ISCTE (including a research internship at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia). She holds a professional specialty in Work, Social and Organizational Psychology and an advanced specialty in Psychotherapy (OPP), with EMDR training (Levels 1 and 2). She is a lecturer at ISCTE and a researcher at CIS since 1999, having held several management roles during this period: she is currently Director of the Master’s Programme in Community Psychology and Protection of Children and Young People at Risk (also in 2018–2019); she was President of the Specialized Committee on Ethics in Psychology (2023–2025); and she was President of the Pedagogical Council of ISCTE for two terms (2019–2023). She has coordinated and collaborated on social and community intervention studies and projects, particularly in the field of programme evaluation, at the local/municipal level, at the national level (e.g., Playgroups for Inclusion/Learn, Play, Grow Groups; Choices Programme, 7th Generation; studies for the National Council for Health Communication), and in other international projects (e.g., ISCWeB – International Survey on Children’s Well-Being; GRIT – Erasmus+ Project – Growing in Urban Education and Diversity; Yar4all). In 2018, she collaborated as a Quality Monitor for the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in an OECD-led project on socioemotional skills, and served as technical and scientific consultant for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the Gulbenkian Knowledge Academies Programme (2018–2022). In addition to her longstanding interest in inclusion (having been involved in the Portuguese Diversity Charter), she has worked in the field of risk (Gambling and adolescence, in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University) and in child and youth protection. Together with colleagues, she has developed materials aimed at promoting children’s rights (“Discovering Children’s Rights”, published by the Portuguese Parliament), universal prevention of sexual abuse (“The Adventures of Búzio and Coral”; “Picos and Avelã Discover the Treasure Forest”), and child hearing in court (“Hearing the Child: A Guide to Good Practice”; “João Goes to Court/The Day Mariana Didn’t Want To”; Project 12: www.projeto12.pt). In 2017, she took part in the T.A.L.E. project (Training Activities for Legal Experts), which aimed to train professionals for the correct implementation of the Council of Europe Guidelines on Child-Friendly Justice. She was a member of the Board of CSIS – Child Safeguarding in Sport and of the Scientific Council of the UBUNTU Leaders Academy. She was a trainer at the Centre for Judicial Studies (CEJ) on Child Hearing (2016–2023). She provided supervision to family support teams (SCML, 2017–2020). She has served as consultant for ACRIDES (Cape Verde) and for the Council of Europe within a project on child-friendly justice.   She is currently a member of the VITA Group, a monitoring group for situations of sexual violence involving children and vulnerable adults within the context of the Catholic Church in Portugal, and serves on the national board of the Portuguese Psychologists’ Association (OPP). She received the OPP Southern Region Career Award in 2020.

Joana Baptista is an Assistant Professor at the ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon. Her research focuses on the early relational determinants of child development, particularly the quality of caregiver-child interactions. In recent years, she has concentrated on understanding the impact of early adverse experiences, with a special emphasis on how deprived parental care affects children's cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning. She is the Principal Investigator of the project All4Children – The Integrated Model of Family Foster Care to Promote High-Quality Child Welfare Practices in Portugal, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (2022.03592.PTDC). Her work also explores how the quality of mother- and father-child interactions shapes executive functioning in infants and preschoolers, both in typically developing children and those born preterm. Joana Baptista has published extensively in leading journals and serves on the editorial board of Infant Behavior & Development.

Lígia Monteiro is an assistant professor at ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon and a full researcher at the Centre for Psychological Research and Social Intervention (CIS-Iscte). She holds a PhD from NOVA University of Lisbon/ISPA-University Institute and has been awarded several grants through competitive calls from FCT (the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology), including a doctoral and two postdoctoral fellowships (one at the Department of Human Development and Family Studies - Auburn University).  With a background on educational and developmental Psychology, she has conducted and participated in several research projects studying the impact of the quality of parenting representations and behaviours, father’s involvement and family dynamics (e.g. coparenting) on children’s socio-emotional outcomes (e.g. attachment and peer interactions) during their early years. She has published her work in several peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Attachment and Human development, Child Development or European Journal of Developmental Psychology); coordinated and participated in special issues on topics such as attachment or fatherhood; as well as books and book chapters. She has presented papers at the most important international conferences, relating to her fields of study. She has collaborated with multiple researchers from Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia.

MARGARIDA VAZ GARRIDO (Ph.D. in Psychology, 2007), is an Associate Professor with Habilitation at Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, where she works since 1998. Her research examines human cognition from a socially situated perspective. She has applied this approach primarily to the study of collaborative memory, false memories and second language processing. In parallel, she has explored the applications of her research to the study of vulnerable and clinical populations (e.g., cognitive processing in abusive parenting, memory processes in ASD and aging, interoception in chronic pain) and to consumer psychology and eating behavior (e.g., cross-modality in taste perception). She has been involved in 39 funded research projects (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, ‘la Caixa’ Foundation) and obtained individual grants (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; and two Marie Curie fellowships) that allowed her to work during her Ph.D. at the University of California - Santa Barbara and at Utrecht University (2010/2014). Her research has been published as books, book chapters, and in over 100 scientific journals (e.g., Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Cognition and Emotion, Cognitive Science, Behavior Research Methods; Psychonomic Bulletin and Review; Journal of Memory and Language). Her work, and that of her team, has been acknowledged by the scientific community with several distinctions and awards. She taught 26 courses in psychology and research methods and supervised the work of more than 50 master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral students. She has held academic and scientific management positions as the Director of the Department of Psychology, the Master of Social and Organizational Psychology, and the Ph.D. Program in Psychology. She was also Vice-Director of Research Center Cis-Iscte. She is on the editorial boards of several journals and scientific evaluation panels and served as president of the Portuguese Psychological Association.

  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.

Marília Prada completed her PhD in Social Psychology at ISCTE-IUL in 2010. Since then she has been teaching diverse courses to undergraduate and masters’ students with an emphasis on research methods and academic skills. She has published national and international scientific and pedagogic papers and has also co-edited a handbook on academic skills. Between 2015-2018, she was a postdoctoral fellow on a project funded by the European Commission (“Examining the Boundaries of Embodiment” coordinated by Margarida Vaz Garrido). Currently, she coordinates an FCT project - Individual and contextual determinants of sugar perception and consumption - hosted by the Center for Research and Social Intervention (CIS-IUL). Her research interests include: (a) the development and validation of instruments; (b) processing of affective information; (c) food perception and eating behavior.

At the broadest level, I am interested in how grounding mechanisms, such as the body, action, modality-specific systems, and physical and social environments, influence the processing of concepts. Within this overarching theme, my work follows two main lines of research. The first investigates the embodiment of cognition with a particular focus on language processing. For example, I examine questions such as: How do sensorimotor and modality-specific experiences (e.g., bodily gestures, perceptual simulation, emotional experiences) modulate concrete and abstract language processing? The second, more recent line of inquiry explores the role of embodied cognitive processes in shaping the relationship between artificial intelligence and human cognition, including how cognitive mechanisms may be mirrored, supported, or challenged by developments in AI. For instance, I ask: How can embodied human cognition inform the creation of AI systems that ground concepts and interpret meaning in contextually and socially sensitive ways?

Ricardo Borges Rodrigues is Assistant Professor at ISCTE-IUL and integrated researcher at CIS-IUL. With a PhD in Social and Organizational Psychology, he conducts research and intervention in the area of ​​intergroup relations in childhood and adolescence, namely on processes of racial, ethnic, and gender based inclusion and exclusion in educational contexts. Director of the Master in Psychology of Intercultural Relations and academic vice coordinator at Iscte of the Erasmus Mundus Global Mobility, Inclusion and Diversity in Society (Global-Minds). At CIS-IUL, he coordinates the project TEIP4 (consultancy to 15 school districts). Has served in expert committees, such as the Commission for Monitoring and Supervision of Educational Centers (2016-2020) and the advisory group for the Curricular Autonomy and Flexibility Project (DGE, 2017).

My interests are on how basic cognitive processes - attention, perception, memory - allow forming impressions and making inferences about others, recognizing emotions, and interacting with the non-social world (e.g. brands). Interests me also how language shapes the way we know the world. Recently I study these issues in clinical populations and also use brain activation measures to answer them.

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. 

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).

My research adopts a critical and interdisciplinary perspective to examine the relationship between people, the climate crisis and the territory, specifically around energy transitions towards carbon neutrality, and associated social justice and political participation issues. I am Co-Editor of the journal Papers on Social Representations (http://psr.iscte-iul.pt/index.php/PSR).