MARIA MANUELA CALHEIROS, PhD in Community Social Psychology ISCTE (2003), is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Psychology of Lisbon University. Her research interests cover the areas of education, well-being and risk factors associated to child and youth development; parental abuse and neglect; and the design and evaluation of intervention programs with abusive and neglectful families and institutionalized children and youth.
From 2006 to 2013 she was the coordinator of the Masters in Community Psychology and Child Protection, from 2010 to 2013 she was the President of the Portuguese Association of Psychology and from 2012 to 2014 she was head of the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology.
With a strong focus on social intervention, Maria Manuela Calheiros has developed several research-based projects on programs that have been applied in different private and public institutions. She has a strong links to the community and has been working with the government (at the national level and the Council of Europe) in providing technical information to support the creation of regulations and guidelines (e.g., for preventing violence towards children),  implementing changes in institutions and facilitating the national implementation of European politics.
With 100 scientific publications, 50 of which in books and scientific journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, her applied research has motivated the implementation of several  prevention campaigns, and the national publication of several books and papers for the academic, professional and students communities.