My name is Joana and I have an academic and professional background in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Developmental Psychology and Neuroscience. As a researcher, I primarily work in the Developmental Affective Neuroscience scientific domain. My research focuses on the neural bases of mother-infant relationship and emotional processing. I am particularly interested in knowing how infants and mothers process the emotional information conveyed through facial expressions. These topics are addressed combining techniques from Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience and Affective Neuroscience, namely, behavioral, physiological, developmental, eye-tracking and neural/fMRI measures.
In February 2021, I was awarded a PhD in Psychology at the University of Porto, for which I was awarded a doctoral grant by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. As a Ph.D. candidate, I followed 50 Portuguese families (infant-mother dyads) longitudinally across 5 time-points: 48h after the infants` birth and in follow-up visits when infants completed 3, 9, 12 and 18 months. Inspired by my previous experience and background, this comprehensive longitudinal study included measures and instruments of varying nature and from different theoretical frameworks, such as observational measures (e.g., Face-to-Face/Still-Face), physiological measures (e.g., infants cardiac activity), developmental measures (e.g., Griffiths Mental Development Scales), experimental paradigms of visual preferences and emotional discrimination with an eye-tracking system, and neural (fMRI) techniques. This complex interdisciplinary study had important theoretical and clinical implications, since it contributed to a better understanding of the relationship between several theoretical constructs such as infants` self-regulation, attachment and development, mothers` sensitivity, mothers` neural processing and mothers visual preferences and emotional discrimination of different emotional facial expressions.
Throughout the years, besides my dedication to research, academic and lecture activities, I have also accumulated experience in Clinical Psychology and Early Intervention, working with infants, toddlers, children and families.
Currently, I am working as a postdoc researcher at the Centre for Research and Innovation in Education (inED), a research center of the Porto Polytechnic School of Education (SE). My research projects aim to study the teacher–child relationships from an attachment perspective, namely, the impact of the observed classroom quality and child–teacher interactions on children`s socio-emotional development
BIO
I have an academic and professional background in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Developmental Psychology and Neuroscience. As a researcher, I primarily work in the Developmental Affective Neuroscience scientific domain. My research focuses on the neural bases of mother-infant relationship and emotional processing. I am particularly interested in knowing how infants and mothers process the emotional information conveyed through facial expressions. These topics are addressed combining techniques from Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience and Affective Neuroscience, namely, behavioral, physiological, developmental, eye-tracking and neural/fMRI measures.
In February 2021, I was awarded a PhD in Psychology at the University of Porto, for which I was awarded a doctoral grant by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. As a Ph.D. candidate, I followed 50 Portuguese families (infant-mother dyads) longitudinally across 5 time-points: 48h after the infants` birth and in follow-up visits when infants completed 3, 9, 12 and 18 months. Inspired by my previous experience and background, this comprehensive longitudinal study included measures and instruments of varying nature and from different theoretical frameworks, such as observational measures (e.g., Face-to-Face/Still-Face), physiological measures (e.g., infants cardiac activity), developmental measures (e.g., Griffiths Mental Development Scales), experimental paradigms of visual preferences and emotional discrimination with an eye-tracking system, and neural (fMRI) techniques. This complex interdisciplinary study had important theoretical and clinical implications, since it contributed to a better understanding of the relationship between several theoretical constructs such as infants` self-regulation, attachment and development, mothers` sensitivity, mothers` neural processing and mothers visual preferences and emotional discrimination of different emotional facial expressions.
Throughout the years, besides my dedication to research, academic and lecture activities, I have also accumulated experience in Clinical Psychology and Early Intervention, working with infants, toddlers, children and families.
Currently, I am working as a postdoc researcher at the Centre for Research and Innovation in Education (inED), a research center of the Porto Polytechnic School of Education (SE). My research projects aim to study the teacher–child relationships from an attachment perspective, namely, the impact of the observed classroom quality and child–teacher interactions on children`s socio-emotional development.