Paula Castro is Full Professor of Psychology at ISCTE-IUL & a researcher at CIS-iscte. She holds a PhD in social and environmental psychology (ISCTE, 2000), and a degree in psychology (Univ-Lisboa,1987). Her research looks at the processes of meaning-making and communication involved in the reception of new laws and public policies - mainly environmental ones - developing a social psychology of legal innovation. She has mainly investigated how new laws and regulations governing climate action, biodiversity conservation, public participation or urban regeneration are received by the public (e.g., contested, accepted, negotiated) and the implications of this reception for social change. The studies, both quantitative and qualitative, often focus on (the asymmetric) relations between public and scientific experts/decision makers. Other areas of interest are people-place relations, local knowledge, social memory and the history of social psychological theories. 

She coordinated and participated in several financed projects (FCT, EU) and supervised various PhD and Pos-Doc projects, with the resulting work published in international journals of high impact in the areas of social, political, environmental and community psychology, as well as environmental policy. She was Director of the Psychology Department (2008–2010), Director of the PhD program in Psychology (2010–2013), Director of the Masters in Studies of Environment and Sustainability (2015-19), Member of ISCTE's SC (2010-2014), and CIS-iscte SC (2016-19) and Director of CIS-iscte (2019-2021).