Serious Thinking

A psychologist at INESC TEC

By Susana Rodrigues*

My name is Susana Rodrigues and I am going to be writing about my experience here at INESC TEC.

I am a psychologist specialising in Clinical and Health Psychology. Prior to coming to INESC TEC, I worked as a psychologist for several years at a clinic. Then there was an opportunity to start a PhD as part of a European project in the fields of stress, coping and engagement in risk professionals at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCEUP). I integrated a multidisciplinary team, with professor João Paulo Cunha, a coordinator at C-BER, as my co-supervisor.

I have been working with this team since 2015 and so naturally I started participating in the group’s weekly meetings. I have to admit that in the beginning, I felt like an odd duck. I did not understand the terminology used and the dynamics was pretty different from what I was used to. I was used to talking about “emotions”, “feelings” and “behaviours”, as opposed to “systems”, “networks”, “algorithms”… On the other hand, the environment was quite informal and relaxed, and I was really curious about the passionate and genuine discussions we had. So I wanted to know more.

Everybody made my integration easier and facilitated my learning process. I have been learning a lot in this interdisciplinary environment and I feel that my colleagues are equally interested in the field of psychology, which I find very gratifying.

I am currently working on project "VR2Market: Towards a Mobile Wearable Health Surveillance Product for First Response and other Hazardous Professions", led by Professor João Paulo Cunha, where I maintain the previous research line of my PhD.

For example, stress analysis (one of the variables we study) from the point of view of Psychology is essentially based on personal, subjective and reports naturally biased by people's beliefs and experiences, personality traits and even the context itself. This makes stress a rather complex concept. In order to make the data clearer and more objective and to help quantify a variable as complex as stress, we also use psychological indicators, physiological measures and data collected in context and in real time. 

This work has only been possible with the collaboration of all. We have a team composed of biomedical engineers, computer scientists and the results have been surprising. I believe that this information can help in preventing psychosocial risks and in designing more targeted and effective stress management interventions.

To conclude, now referring to INESC TEC in general, I would like to emphasise the diversity, which is not only scientific but also cultural and ethnic. Every day we share stories, experiences and learning, which makes this institution more than a mere workplace - it is a place of experiences and challenges.

*Collaborator at the Centre for Biomedical Engineering Research (C-BER)