The Open Conference
The Open Conference (OC) represents one of the annual Junior Researcher Programme (JRP) events held during the jSchool, and open to all non-participating students and academics. Early career researchers from all over the world are invited to present and discuss their past or current research in any field of Psychology (or related) with other attendees.It is an unmissable opportunity for young aspiring researchers in Psychology to learn about studies being carried out internationally, network with groups of early career researchers and academics, and present their ideas and findings to a friendly group of fellow students from around the world. Individuals from all backgrounds related to Psychology are welcome to join and participate, regardless of their experience in research. The event is open also to those solely interested in learning about research, but who do not wish to present.
Join us!
This year, the OC will be running for the fifth consecutive year on the 13th July 2022 from 13:30 (CET) and will be hosted at Certosa di Pontignano (Localita Pontignano, 5, 53019 Pontignano SI, Italy), a 14th Century venue located in the vast Chianti countryside of Siena. All early-career researchers or students in Psychology and related fields are welcome to join us in person for a day filled with activities and networking events. All guests will receive a JRP certificate of presentation or attendance in a digital format at the end of their event participation. Check our infopack to learn more about how to sign up and join us this year. If you know you’d like to attend as a presenter or as an attendee, you can directly sign up via our Qualtrics form!
Events at the Open Conference 2022
Workshop: Using Virtual Reality to promote Well-Being (Instructor: Maria Sansoni)
Maria Sansoni, PhD Candidate at the University of Sacred Heart in Milan, member of the Humane Techology Lab and supervisor of the 2022 jSchool, will drive attendees through all the steps of this workshop. Maria applies indeed VR to the psycho-oncological field, by developing psychological interventions for improving cancer patients’ well-being. Thanks to her new position as a supervisor of the 2022 jSchool, Maria will also support her team on assessing the impact of Instagram filters on users’ well-being and creating an intervention to buffer the pressure of social media perfection”.
Join us for a 90-minute workshop concerning the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to promote Well-Being. Attendees will firstly get information about VR and how this technology can be broadly used to improve people’s well-being, they will then proceed by analyzing practical implications of VR interventions, and they will conclude the workshop by experiencing on their skin what they listened to during the first part of the workshop: a practical experience will challenge them with VR headsets and scenarios, to offer participants concrete and real examples of VR intereventions that enhance well-being.
Alumni lecture: Global perspectives of parenting, adolescent development, and young-adult well-being during community-wide stressors (Lecturer: Ann Skinner)
Ann Skinner is a Research Scientist with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University, USA, where she has worked since 2001. Her research focuses on the ways in which stressful community, familial, and interpersonal events impact parent-child relationships, and on the development of aggression and internalizing behaviors in youth. She has extensive experience in data management of multisite and cross-national projects and in supervising teams for school- and community-based interventions and data collection. Skinner is a former supervisor in in the 2020-21 cohort of the JRP where her team explored the associations among experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and adolescent and young adult adjustment. With support from the Society of Research on Adolescence and the John Templeton Foundation, she was chosen as a COVID-19 Global Scholars Fellow, and is collaborating with researchers in 5 countries to further explore adolescent and young-adult wellbeing during the pandemic using multiple data sets. Skinner has a PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, a master’s degree in education, and B.A. in psychology, both from the College of William and Mary, Virginia, USA, with a focus on teaching students with emotional and learning disabilities.
Ann Skinner, a supervisor from the 2020-21 cohort, will present the alumni lecture, Global perspectives of parenting, adolescent development, and young-adult well-being during community-wide stressors. This lecture will include 3 parts: First, framed by an ongoing 14-year, 9-country study of parenting and youth development, she will engage the audience in a conversation about the benefits and challenges of cross-national collaboration. Next, she will present an overview of research on families’ experiences during community wide stressors, including COVID-19, community violence exposure, and political violence. The talk concludes with a discussion of the research conducted by her JRP team over the last two years.