Scientific Activities

IMMIGRANT YOUTH RESILIENCE

My main line of research has focused on the study of immigrant and refugee youth adaptation, development and acculturation. I have developed the Athena Studies of Resilient Adaptation (AStRA) project. This project has been supported by three grants co-funded by the European Social Fund and Greek National Resources..

The AStRA project includes three cohort longitudinal studies, one conducted before (2005-2007) and the other during the Great Economic Recession in Greece (2013-2015). The third was conducted during the COVID19 pandemic (2020-2023). Over 3500 immigrant adolescents and their nonimmigrant classmates, as well as 100 refugee adolescents were studied. It also includes the implementation of the Identity Project, a randomized control trial targeting ethnic-cultural identity exploration and resolution. The intervention was developed by Adriana Umana-Taylor and colleagues.

I collaborate with Professors Ann Masten (Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, USA), Jens Asendorpf (Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany),  Vassilis Pavlopoulos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Philia Issari (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens),  Katarina Salmela-Aro (University of Helsinki, Finland), Adriana Umana-Taylor (Harvard University, USA), Olga Kornienko (George Mason University, USA), Selcuk Sirin (New York University, USA).

RESILIENCE IN MILITARY CONTEXT

I am currently working on a collaborative project between the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and the Hellenic Armed Forces. The Principal investigator is Assistant Professor Ioannis Tsaousis who is a psychometrician. Our mandate is to develop an instrument to assess resilience among peacekeeping forces and other military personnel. We collaborate on this project with Professor Melissa Polusny, University of Minnesota Medical School and Staff Psychologist at Minneapolis VA Medical Center.