Award Winner Dr. Mar Rus-Calafell

Mar Rus-Calafell was born in Mallorca (Spain) in 1984. She graduated in psychology at the University of the Balearic Islands in Palma and the University of Barcelona. From 2008 to 2013, she worked as a clinical psychologist at the Hospital d’Igualada in Barcelona. In 2014, she obtained her PhD degree at the University of Barcelona. After a research stay at Sorbonne Université (Paris, France), she worked as a clinical researcher at the University of Oxford and at King’s College London (UK). She is currently researching and teaching as a postdoctoral researcher at Ruhr University Bochum in the team of Professor Silvia Schneider.

Although most mental health problems begin in adolescence, there has been little research on this issue with adolescents to date. This is where Mar Rus-Calafell’s research comes in. As a recipient of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, she will be investigating which psychological and social factors are responsible for persistent and stressful psychotic experiences in adolescents. To this end, she will use a long-term study and in-depth interviews at Ruhr University Bochum, as well as laboratory experiments to observe stressful symptoms in adolescents over a longer period of time. The insights will provide the basis for the development and testing of new treatment models such as digital therapy. At the same time, the project will provide young people with a platform that supports them and helps them to cope with everyday challenges.