From master to PhD-student

Andrea Ritoša attended the Master's program "Interventions in Childhood" at Jönköping University and has a Master's degree in Psychology. She has previous work experience from the social services in Croatia, where she has worked with children and young people from difficult background conditions, and their families.

Now Andrea is a doctoral student in Disability Research at the School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University. Her PhD project is a follow-up study with the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the long-term effects of preschool environment and involvement in preschool activities on school engagement and achievement. Researchers have followed the children since they went to preschool and now they are in grades 3 and 6. Together they try to draw conclusions on both protective and strengthening factors for children's functioning, with a special focus on children with behavioral problems.

Andrea has always been interested in children and developmental psychology and she would like to work both in practice and research in the future.

Kaat Philippe, born and raised in Leuven, Belgium, is a doctoral student at INRAE, Dijon in France. She studied psychology at the University of Leuven, and she was trained as a clinical psychologist, specified to working with children and adolescents. Her Master’s thesis was focused on illness-identity in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.

In 2016, Kaat started her second Master’s program, Interventions in Childhood, at Jönköping University. Here, she conducted a systematic literature review for her Master’s thesis on eating and feeding difficulties in children who have or had cancer and parental feeding strategies, which triggered her interest in eating and feeding behaviors. After graduating, she worked as research assistant at the University of Leuven studying the neurocognitive development of children who were prenatally exposed to cancer treatments.

Now, Kaat’s research focuses on the impact of caregivers’ feeding practices on children’s eating behavior. She hopes that her research will give new insights in eating and feeding behavior, and that it can contribute to stimulating healthy eating patterns in children from a young age.

Åsa Morin attended the Master’s program ”Interventions in Childhood” at Jönköping University in 2016. Besides her Master's degree, she has a Bachelor's degree in education. Åsa has many years’ experience as a preschool teacher and after graduating from Jönköping University, she worked as a special educator in preschool. During the years her interest for gifted children and the challenges that comes with giftedness has grown.

Now Åsa is a doctoral student at the department of Education and Teachers’ Practice, Linnaeus University in Sweden. Her PhD project focuses on gifted children and their encounter with an institutional learning environment. Åsa hopes that her research will give new insights in early interventions as well as special adaptions in order to promote individual well-being and prevent future school failures.