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Areas of expertise
Biography
I am a Professor of Psychology at University of Turku since 2003. I did both my master’s degree (1992) and PhD (1998) in the University of Turku. I have been Academy of Finland post-doctoral research fellow, academy research fellow, and academy senior research fellow, and visiting professor in the University of Stavanger (2006-2012), Edith Cowan University (2011-2013) in Perth, Australia, and (currently) in Shandong University in Jinan, China.
Teaching
I have been involved in teaching mainly related to developmental psychology and research skills. My main contribution to teaching is, and has been, supervision of graduate students.
Research
I have done school-based research on bullying and its evidence-based prevention for more than 25 years. Together with my team we developed the KiVa antibullying program (www.kivaprogram.net) which has been awarded both nationally and internationally, and is widely implemented in schools in Finland and elsewhere. I have published numerous research articles, book chapters, and books on the topics of children’s peer relations and school bullying. My current research interests include different approaches to tackle bullying and their effectiveness in the short and in the long term, the sustainability of the implementation of prevention programs, and mediating mechanisms of program effects.