Keynote speakers

Tampere University, Finland

Prof. Dr. Nelli Hankonen is Professor of Social Psychology at Tampere University. Her research focuses on motivational processes, self-regulation, and the implementation of behaviour change techniques in real-world settings. She designs and evaluates interventions aimed at improving health behaviours, particularly physical activity, using theory-based and participatory methods. She also works in implementation science and contributes to national working groups and international consortia on evidence-based health promotion.

Keywords: Mental Health; Health-related behavior change; focus on physical activity​

Prof. Dr. Silvia Schneider is Professor of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum and Director of the Research & Treatment Center for Mental Health. She also coordinates the Bochum–Marburg site of the German Center for Mental Health (DZPG). Her research focuses on the aetiology, prevention, and treatment of emotional disorders in youth, including family transmission and diagnostic methods. She leads intervention studies and digital mental health programmes in clinical and school settings. Prof. Schneider has gained recognition for her contributions, receiving the 2025 German Psychology Award and the 2024 Diotima Honorary Award for advancing evidence-based child and adolescent psychotherapy.

Keywords: Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, Emotional Disorders; Mental Health 

Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany

Claudia Buss is a Professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Charité, Universitätsmedizin, Berlin and an Adjunct Professor at the University of California Irvine. Her research addresses the effects of early life stress on health and disease susceptibility. She is specifically interested in the processes that underlie the biological embedding of such early experiences and the mechanisms that underlie the intergenerational transmission of early life stress. Her work has specifically advanced our understanding of the relationship between variation in maternal-placental-fetal stress biology in association with maternal current and childhood stress and fetal/infant neurodevelopmental trajectories by applying multimodal neuroimaging techniques. 

Keywords: Mental Health, Early Determinants of Health and Disease

Prof. Dr. Andrew G. Ryder is Professor of Psychology at Concordia University in Montréal, where he directs the Culture, Health, and Personality Lab, and is also an affiliated researcher with the Culture and Mental Health Research Unit at the Jewish General Hospital. His research examines: (1) how culture shapes symptom presentation of emotional disorders, especially in East Asia; (2) acculturation and adaptation of migrants; (3) mental health beliefs held in different cultural communities; and (4) best practices for evidence-based psychological interventions in transcultural settings. He is also taking part in collaborative conceptual work to develop the field of cultural-clinical psychology.

Keywords: Cultural-Clinical Psychology, Depression and Anxiety, Acculturation

Concordia University, Canada

University of Groningen, Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Linda Steg is Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Groningen. Her research investigates psychological factors that influence sustainable behaviour, particularly how values, motivation, and context shape energy use and climate-related choices. She contributes to international assessment bodies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and serves on national scientific advisory committees. Her work informs the design of behavioural interventions and environmental policy.

Keywords: Environmental Psychology, Psychology of Sustainable Behaviour

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Betsch is psychologist and Professor of Health Communication and Director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour at the University of Erfurt. She also leads the Health Communication Working Group at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. Her research focuses on the psychological determinants of health and planetary health-related behaviours, such as readiness for climate action, prudent use of antibiotics, and vaccination behaviour. She leads projects such as the COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO) and the Planetary Health Action Survey (PACE). She advises national and international institutions including the WHO and the German government and is a member of the German Ethics Council. She received the 2021 German Psychology Prize and the 2022 Thuringia Research Award.

Keywords: Health- and climate-friendly behavior; Psychology of Sustainable Behaviour

Photo credit: Marco Borggreve

University of Erfurt, Germany

University of Bristol, England

Prof. Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky is Chair in Cognitive Science at the University of Bristol. His research examines how online information architectures interact with human cognition and the implications for democratic societies. He studies the persistence of misinformation and conspiracy theories, the role of platform algorithms, and factors that shape acceptance of scientific evidence, for example on vaccination and climate science. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Association for Psychological Science, a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and the recipient of a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Fellowship, an ARC Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award, and a Humboldt Research Award. He was identified as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, and he has advised European policy makers, including as first author of the 2020 Technology and Democracy report.

Keywords: Cognitive Science, Misinformation, propaganda, fact rejection, online information system and democracy

Gerhard Reese is Associate Professor for Climate Change at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington. His research examines psychological mechanisms that enable or hinder sustainable behavior in individuals and groups, with a focus on social identity and systemic processes, nature and well-being and engagement with climate policy. He co-developed the Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action and uses experimental and survey methods to inform evidence-based climate communication. He previously served as Professor of Environmental Psychology at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau and obtained his PhD in Psychology from the University of Jena following a Master’s degree at the University of Kent.

Keywords: Environmental psychology, social identity, pro-environmental action, climate, nature and well-being

School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand