Extended name: Cooperativa de Formação e Animação Cultural, crl- COFAC
Country: Portugal
Website: https://www.ulusofona.pt/
COFAC is a non-profit cooperative, responsible for the management of Lusófona University, recognised by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education in 1998, and is the largest private university in Portugal, integrating 10 HEI in Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Guinea- Bissau.
It has a student body of more than 10.000 students and 1500 teachers and it is structured around 9 (nine) Schools that constitute the main institutional unit and offer 44 undergraduate Degrees, 45 Master Degrees, 11 PhD’s programs and 42 Post- graduation courses. Besides this, the university offers a large number of vocational and continuous training courses accordingly with the life-learning development paradigm.
The University has a large experience in research and project management of European and international projects.
Pedro Gamito
Pedro Gamito earned his PhD from the University of Salford (UK) in Built and Human Environment in 2002, and the title of Aggregate in Rehabilitation by the University of Lisbon in 2012. Pedro is a Full Professor and the Director of the Computational Psychology Laboratory at the School of Psychology and Life Sciences and the director of the Research Centre – HEI-Lab – Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab, at Lusófona University. Since 2004 he has been developing, validating and applying numerous virtual reality applications designed for the treatment of anxiety disorders and for the cognitive stimulation of patients with stroke, TBI and Substance Use Disorders. His apps are being use daily in the two largest Portuguese psychiatric and rehab hospitals. Pedro has been engaged in several VR-based simulation projects under EU financing schemes. He has published extensively and is associated editor on several scientific journals in his field. Pedro has participated in several projects in the field of eHealth and contributes to the most relevant professional associations within his line of work.
In 2018, he was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Association of Cyber Psychology, Training Rehabilitation.
Leonor Pereira da Costa
Leonor Pereira da Costa concluded the PhD in Psychology at the Center for Research and Social Intervention of ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, with a thesis titled, Navigating social class in childhood: Development of Intergroup relations and Self-Categorization. Leonor completed her degree in Psychology in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto and completed her masters degree in Data Mining and Data Analysis at ISCTE. Currently she is Assistant Professor at Lusófona University, in the School of Psychology and Life Sciences, and a researcher at HEI-Lab in the same institution. She also developed her work as an Applied Research Assistant at the ResearchCenter of Public Opinion of the Catholic University of Portugal, where she collaborated in numerous national and international research projects. Her interests are focused on intergroup relations and behaviors of inclusion and social exclusion in childhood, with special focus on social inequalities related to children’s socioeconomic status.
Ricardo Pinto
Ricardo Pinto is assistant professor at University Lusófona of Porto, Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sports, and Director of the Master in Juvenile Justice and Protection of Children and Young People in Danger. He received his Ph.D. in 2013 in Health Psychology at University of Minho. He has expertise in quantitative methods and his programmatic work is in the effects of interpersonal violence on women and children, including child maltreatment and post-traumatic stress disorder in adolescents. This research has significant public health implications in Portugal, where there are relatively high rates of intimate partner violence and
childhood adversity and trauma. He is currently interested in testing theoretical models of stress and trauma exposure through virtual reality, for instance in first responders. His work has been published in high profile outlets, such as Psychoneuroendocrinology, Journal of
Traumatic Stress, and Child Abuse and Neglect. He is member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Traumatic Stress and has been invited to have an editorial participation as a reviewer in several international journals.
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ALERRT 