The team

The Iscte HEALTH team was established by Rectoral order and is coordinated by Professor Luísa Lima, with the support of Professor Henrique Martins, and under the management of Iscte-Health Doutora Cristina Camilo. As part of the team, the following Professors are included: Elizabeth Reis, Generosa Nascimento, Rita Espanha, Francisco Nunes, Octavian Pastolache, Elsa Pegado, João Ferreira, Sónia Bernardes and Patrícia Arriaga.

Luísa Lima is a Full Professor of Social Psychology at Iscte's School of Social Sciences and Humanities. She coordinates the Iscte_Health Mission Team and the Scientific Council of Iscte. She is an Honorary Professor of the University of Bath. Her research applies social psychology to health and environmental issues, namely risk perception and social participation.

Henrique Martins has a Medical Degree, Internal Medicine Speciality, a Master's and a PhD in Management, and is finishing his Master's in Law. He is a National Defence Auditor and University Professor, teaching and researching in Digital Health and Leadership and Management education for Medical Students and Health Professionals. He was one of the first CMIOs in Portugal, from 2009 to 2013 at Hospital Fernando Fonseca, Lisbon, where he implemented a large EHR system and founded an Innovation Centre in Big Data and Robotics. He is the former president of SPMS, Portugal's Digital Health Agency, where he led National eHealth efforts for nearly 7 years. He represented Portugal for 8 years and was the former Member States co-chair of the EU eHealth Network, the Union's highest policy body on eHealth. Elected Fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics in July 2020. Since August 2020, he has been a member of the HL7 Europe Foundation Board of Directors. He now works as an Academic in two high-ranked business schools and one medical school, and on individual consulting projects in Healthcare Transformation and Digital Health (www.henriquemartins.eu). He has authored a series of papers, some of which examine new trends in digital health at the national and hospital levels.

Cristina Camilo is an invited Assistant Professor at the Iscte-IUL Psychology Department, where she has lectured on the impact of social relations on health and the effects of emotional sharing on well-being. She has a PhD in psychology from Iscte. She has developed research on themes such as the management of emotions in health communication and the link between social integration, health, and well-being.

Rita Espanha is an Assistant Professor with Aggregation at Iscte-Instituto Universitario de Lisboa and director of the Master's in Communication, Culture and Information Technology. She is a researcher at CIES-Iscte and currently conducts research in the areas of "Communication, Information Technology and Health", "Health Literacy", and "Generations and Communication Technology". She coordinates the ERASMUS program for the Sociology Department. She is the author of several books and articles in the areas of Health and Communication, Network Communication and Youth and Media in Portugal. 

Elsa Pegado holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa. She is a researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology of Iscte (CIES-IUL) and is currently the Centre's deputy director. She is also an Assistant Professor at Iscte, where she teaches Sociology of Health and Research Methods and Techniques. She has developed research in the sociology of health and illness, specifically on Complementary and Alternative Medicine and medications.

Generosa do Nascimento is a professor at the Department of Human Resources and Organisational Behaviour of ISCTE-IUL. She is the Director of the Executive Master in Health Services Management, the Post-Graduation in Management for Health Professionals, and the Executive Master in Strategic Management of People and Leadership at ISCTE Executive Education. She holds a PhD in Management, specialising in Human Resources and Organisational Behaviour, from Iscte-IUL. She was an advisor to the Board of Directors and a consultant in Health Services Management and People Management across the public, private, and social sectors. Health Services Management and Strategic People Management are her main areas of research and teaching.

Sibila Marques is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Iscte-IUL and the Director of the Master's in Social Psychology of Health and Coordinator of the Health4All Research Group. She is a member of the European group EURAGE and was the scientific coordinator for the European projects SIforAGE and INHERIT. She is the author of the essay Discrimination of the Third Age published in 2011 by the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation. Completed his PhD in 2009.

Patrícia Arriaga is an Assistant Professor with habilitation at Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and a researcher at CIS-IUL. She has a PhD in Social and Organisational Psychology with specialisation in Social Psychology (2006), a Master's in Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology (2000) and a degree in Psychology (1996). She is certified by the Portuguese Psychologists' Order (OPP) and by EuroPsy in the areas of "Clinical and Health Psychology" and "Work, Social and Organisational Psychology". She holds an advanced specialisation in "Neuropsychology". She was the director of the Master's in Psychology of Emotions for 4 years and of the Master's in Emotion Sciences for 5 years. Her research interests have focused on the study of affective and cognitive processes applied to health and social psychology, which have resulted in publications and contributions to the development, evaluation and sharing of tools for the community (e.g. games and other information, entertainment and communication systems) from a perspective of promoting well-being and cognitive and social skills. He is currently studying the articulation of involvement in art and well-being and health. Her research, which mostly integrates multidisciplinary teams, has been funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, Bial Foundation and the European Commission (Erasmus+).

Sónia Bernardes is a M.S. (2003) and a PhD (2008) in Social Psychology of Health (Iscte). Associate Professor with Habilitation in Psychology at the Department of Psychology of Iscte, where she started teaching in 1999. She is currently the Head of the Psychology Department. She was vice-dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, vice-director of the Centre for Social Research and Intervention, the director of the Master's in Social Psychology of Health and Head 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 focused on social disparities in health and the role of psychosocial influences in adaptation to chronic illness. She has mainly explored these issues in relation to a particular health-related topic – (chronic) pain. Several scientific awards have recognised 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.

João Carlos Amaro Ferreira is an Assistant Professor with habilitation at Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and a researcher at ISTAR-IUL. He has a degree in Technological Physics Engineering (91), a Master's in Electrical and Computer Engineering (93), and a PhD in Computer Science (06) and a second PhD Program in Leaders of Technological Industries, MIT-Portugal (13). His research interests are Text Mining, Data Mining, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Smart Cities, and Smart Health. He is the author of about 200 scientific papers in the area of computer science. He participated in 25 scientific projects (national and international) and presented 53 projects under the H2020, FP7 and PT2020 programs, ten of which as PI. One patent in Edge Computing for a fishery monitoring system. He was the main organiser of several conferences: OAIR 2013, INTSYS 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. He has delivered more than 20 Keynote/plenary lectures and more than 30 invited lectures on various topics in computational intelligence. He is on the editorial board of 12 journals and an evaluator and auditor for European projects. Has been a member of the PC of more than 50 scientific conferences and chaired more than 12 sections in international conferences.

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