Public lectures on Positive Youth Development

Aud 128, Christies Gate 12, 9am

Margarida Gaspar de Matos, is a clinical and health Psychologist, and a full professor at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. She is also a group coordinator at the Environmental Health Institute/Medical School. Gaspar de Matos coordinates the Board of Promotion and Prevention at the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) and is a member of the Steering Committee for the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) - Child health. She is Portugal’s Principal Investigator for the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study.

Aud. 128, Christies Gate 12, 9am

ANA KOZINA, Ph.DEducational Research Institute, SloveniaEmail: ana.kozina@pei.siDr. Ana Kozina is a researcher and the head of the Centre for evaluation studies in Educational Research Institute (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and a docent of psychology at the University of Maribor. Her research work presents interplay between educational and developmental psychology. She is focused on the developmental and time related trends of aggression and anxiety (in childhood and adolescence) their interplay and the role anxiety and aggression play on individual level, on school level and on the community level (with possible prevention and intervention designs). In the field of education she is interested in the factors related to students’ achievement (e.g. school climate, social and emotional learning, motivation...).  She has been involved in several national and international research and evaluation projects (e.g. RAOLLLA (2012-2014): Raising awareness and opportunities of lifelong learning for low achievers;  TITA (2014-2017): Team cooperation to fight early school leaving (ESL): training, innovative tools and actions) and has just finished postdoctoral project: Development of guidelines for aggression reduction on school level based on an anxiety-aggression model and trend analyses of anxiety and aggression in Slovenia primary schools from year 2007 to year 2011. She is a part of the international group investigating Positive youth development across Europe. Currently she is working on the research project: Neoliberalism in the European Higher Education Area: Between the Efficiency and Equity of Slovenian Education Policies and Practices (leading researcher of case study 2: Ensuring equity through developing student’s social and emotional skills and their wellbeing for greater efficacy). She is an active member of focused research group Educational studies (2015-2020) and a member of Editorial board: Educational research Institute Press.

Aud. 128, Christies gate 12, 9am

RADOSVETA DIMITROVA, Ph.DStockholm University, SwedenEmail: radosveta.dimitrova@psychology.su.se, dimitrova.radosveta@gmail.comWebsite: www.radosvetadimitrova.orgRadosveta Dimitrova holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology (University of Trieste, Italy; awarded the 2009 Best Doctoral Thesis by the Italian Association of Psychologists) and a PhD in Cross-Cultural Psychology (Tilburg University, the Netherlands; awarded the 2012 Dissertation Award of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)). She is the 2016 Young Scientist Awardee of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, ISSBD, for distinguished theoretical contribution and dissemination of developmental science. She is a Docent of Psychology at Stockholm University, Sweden, and a Distinguished International Fellow at Hiroshima University, Japan. She has research and teaching experience at the Brent Centre for Young People, London (UK), Brown University, Tufts University, Michigan State University (USA), Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) and ongoing collaborations in Europe, Asia, USA, and Africa. Her research interests regard social identity, well-being, migration, positive youth development, ethnic minority groups (Roma), adaptation of instruments in different cultures. She is Associate Editor of Journal of Child and Family Studies, International Psychology Bulletin (IPB); Consulting Editor of Developmental Psychology, Guest Editor for Emerging Adulthood, Current Issues in Personality Psychology, Journal of Adolescence; editor of a book on well-being of immigrant families at Springer, and two upcoming books on emerging adults across cultures at Oxford University Press and Springer. She is the Past president of the Early Researchers Union (ERU) of the European Association of Developmental Psychology (EADP), Council member of the EADP, the Society for the Study of Human Development (SSHD) Emerging Scholars Committee, the SecNet at EARA (European Association for Research on Adolescence), the Society for Research on Adolescence’s (SRA) Study Group Committee, the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood (SSEA) and the Advisory Board of the Global Network for Human Development.