Members

Professor of Health Psychology at the Rovira i Virgili University and ICREA-Academia distinguished researcher. Director of the Master in General Health Psychology at the Rovira i Virgili University. He is one of the principal researchers of the Campus of International Excellence Southern Catalonia (CEICS). Principal investigator and director of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain and ALGOS, a consolidated pain research group recognized by the Generalitat of Catalonia. Coordinator of the Grupo de trabajo de Dolor Pediátrico de la Sociedad Española del Dolor, de la Red Española de Dolor Infantil (REDIN) and the Red Iberoamericana para el Estudio y Tratamiento del Dolor Infantil. He has received different awards for his research on pain.

Holds a PhD in Psychology from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, a Master's in Behaviour Evaluation and Measurement, a Master's in Clinical and Health Psychology, and a Postgraduate Certificate in the Psychology of Pain. Dr Castarlenas is a member of the URV's Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain-ALGOS and is involved in the chronic pain treatment programme for children and adolescents currently being conducted in several hospitals in the province of Tarragona. She is the main researcher on the Educ@dol project for the development and preliminary evaluation of an application for tackling chronic pain in schools (MINECO; ref.: PSI2014-60180-JIN).

PhD in Psychology from the Rovira i Virgili University. Master in Evaluation and Measurement of Behavior, Master in Clinical and Health Psychology and Specialist in Psychology of pain. Currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS and linked to the program of treatment of chronic pain in children and adolescents that is being carried out in different hospitals in the province of Tarragona. Compatibilizes the search with teaching functions to the Degree in Psychology and the Master in General Health Psychology at the Rovira i Virgili University.

Associate professor at the Department of Psychology at Rovira i Virgili University, where she is the coordinator of the Area of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment. She is a member of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS and is the secretary of the Working Group on Psychology and Pain of the Spanish Pain Society. Her professional interests revolve around the prevention of chronic pain and disability in children. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the Project "Prevendol: Prevention of post-surgical chronic pain in children and adolescents" (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; PID2020-113869RA-I00). This project is carried out in collaboration with several Spanish hospitals.

Graduated in Psychology and student of the Master's Degree in General Health Psychology (MUPGS) of the Rovira y Virgili University. Currently a Member of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain-ALGOS and work as a support technique for research project of the Spanish Network of Child Pain (REDIN), funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (Ref. : PSI2016-82004-REDT). He also collaborates in different research projects in childhood pain.

Masters Degree in Psychology and General Health Psychology from the University of Barcelona. He has collaborated in several research projects on clinical psychology and health, linked to the University of Barcelona and the Rovira i Virgili University. Member of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS. He is currently working as a research technician in the project Educ@dol: development and preliminary evaluation of an application to address chronic pain in the school context (MINECO, ref: PSI2014-60180-JIN).

Technical Engineer in Telecommunications, specialized in Telematics, from the Rovira i Virgili University. Master's degree in Information and Communications Technology Security from the Open University of Catalonia. PhD in Health, Psychology and Psychiatry from the Rovira i Virgili University. Researcher and support technician of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS where its main task is the development of technological applications for the treatment of chronic pain, especially mobile applications, improving the digital accessibility of health.

Sonia Monterde Pérez, physiotherapist, Master in educational technology: e-learning and knowledge management and doctor from the Rovira and Virigili University. Dr. Monterde has devoted a complete dedication to higher education in physiotherapy and research since 2004 at the same University. Although he has several professional goals, he believes that patients suffering from chronic pain should have an active role. The dedication to his profession, patients and students around chronic pain is reflected in the publications in which he has participated since 2010 on Myofascial Pain Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.

Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the Rovira i Virgili University. Specialist in Family and Community Medicine. Family Doctor of the Primary Care Center of Santa Tecla - Llevant in Tarragona (Health and Social Network of Santa Tecla) since 2002. His academic, professional and research interests are children and, mainly, adolescents. Currently, she is responsible for the Adolescent program in her work area. Throughout his career he has received specific training in areas related to health in adolescence, especially in the care of drug addiction and chronic pain. He is currently doing a postgraduate course in mental health at the University of Alcalá. He is interested in participating in the investigation of chronic pain in children and adolescents and putting it into practice. Search, above all, to improve their professional practice through research.

Isabel Salvat is a physiotherapist and doctor, a full-time professor in the Department of Medicine and Surgery at the Rovira i Virgili University. His interest in pain began with muscular pain, myofascial pain, which he has deepened through research and about him that imparts most of his teaching, both undergraduate and postgraduate. From the myofascial pain, his interest expanded towards the syndromes of central sensitization, specifically, towards fibromyalgia, on which he has also conducted research and taught. On the other hand, he worries about making his students able to respond to the needs of society, specifically, the demands of people, children and adults, who suffer pain.

Psychologist (IBERO, Mexico), teacher in Cognitive Development (Madero), master’s in Clinical Neuropsychology (ITEAP), Specialist in Emotional Education and Well-being (University of Barcelona), certified in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (Albert Ellis Institute). She works as a child and adolescent clinical psychologist in Mexico; within her interests is the research and implementation of methodologies for child welfare. She is currently collaborating with the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS.

He is a PhD student in Health, Psychology and Psychiatry at the Rovira i Virgili University. Carlos obtained his master's degree in Counseling, Clinical Psychology and Mental Health at Johns Hopkins University (USA), where he worked on a research proposal related to reducing levels of depression in the elderly population with the use of assisted therapy with animals. Currently, he works as a psychotherapist and clinical behavioral and mental health specialist in the primary care team of the Family Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, California, USA. Under the direction of Dr. Jordi Miró, Carlos coordinates an investigation in the management of chronic pain in the blind and low vision population. Carlos is very motivated with this research project since he is a blind individual since 2000 when he lost his vision. Carlos is passionate about animals, cooking, nature, traveling, dancing and practicing mindfulness.

Degree in nursing, master's in clinical psychology from the University of Balamand, Lebanon and doctorate student at Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Member of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain-ALGOS. Her previous work focused on the translation to Arabic, cultural adaptation, and validation of common pain intensity scales. She is currently working on an epidemiological study to determine the prevalence of pediatric chronic pain in Lebanon and the impact of some sociocultural factors. Her studies provided groundwork for pediatric chronic pain in Lebanon.

Graduated in Psychology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Master degree in General Health Psychology (MUPGS) at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Awarded a Martí i Franquès fellowship (PMF-PIPF) from Universitat Rovira i Virgili to continue with her doctoral studies. Generally speaking, the objectives of her dissertation are to help improve the assessment and treatment for chronic pain in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

Graduated in Psychology and Master of General Healthy Psychology by the University of the Balearic Islands. He has worked at the University of the Balearic Islands and the Institute of Health Research of the Balearic Islands (IdISBa) in various research projects on clinical psychology and health. He is currently a PhD student in Health, Psychology and Psychiatry at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and a member of the Unit for Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS. He has an Investigator Staff Training fellowship (FPI; Ref.: PRE2019-089283) funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovationn and linked to the research project "Estudio Transversal y Prospeectivo del Dolor Crónico en Población Juvenil" (Ref.: RTI2018-098710-B-I00) to carry out his thesis.

Graduate in Psychology and student of the Master's Degree in General Health Psychology (MUPGS) at the Rovira i Virgili University. Currently, a member of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain-ALGOS, as a Research support technician, collaborating in the epidemiological study of child and adolescent chronic pain funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. 

Graduated in Journalism at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and with a Master's Degree in Digital Communication, Data and New Narratives by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Jesús has worked, above all, in the written press and in recent years he has specialized in corporate communication, essentially in the university field. In the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS is responsible for communication and transfer of knowledge to society as a research support technician.

Dr. Abu-Saad Huijer received her BSN from American University of Beirut (AUB) and her Masters and PhD from the University of Florida, USA. Her career span includes professorial positions at the University of California San Francisco, University of Maastricht, University of Surrey, and more recently AUB. Dr. Abu-Saad Huijer is a tenured full professor and Founding Dean of the Hariri School of Nursing at AUB. Her research endeavors in Lebanon have focused primarily on pain management and palliative care in adults and children. She has published more than 300 articles and two books. Dr. Abu-Saad Huijer has served on a number of international expert committees, most recent of which is the WHO expert panel on palliative care in children and the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Pain Control and Palliative Care. Dr. Huijer received many awards and recognitions for her research work: Life Time Achievement Award from the McMillan Cancer Fund in London; Pioneers Award from the Order of Nurses in Lebanon; distinguished researcher award from the Scientific Society of Arab Nursing Faculties. She was also inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame, awarded the International Association for the Study of Pain Honorary membership, received the Princess Mona Regional Award for her significant contribution to the nursing profession, and recently received the National Center for Scientific Research career award for her lifetime research achievements and the AAAH (Asia-Pacific Action Alliance on Human Resources for Health) Recognition Award 2020 on her work in developing the healthcare workforce.

Allen Finley is a pediatric anesthesiologist with more than 25 years of experience in pain research and treatment. He is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology at Dalhousie University, and holds the chair Dr. Stewart Wenning in Pediatric Pain Management at the IWK Health Center, in Halifax (Canada). He has published more than 110 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and has pronounced more of 240 invited conferences in the six continents. He created the discussion group by mail PEDIATRIC-PAIN in the year 1993, where physicians and researchers about pain meet from more than 40 countries. His educational and research projects have recently taken him to Jordan, Thailand, China and Brazil, among other countries. Its main interest is the development of child pain care services, in addition to promoting programs to improve care for children with pain around the world. He is collider of the ChildKind International Initiative.

Bachelor in Psychology and Master in Psychological and Health Treatments and Master in Health Psychology from the University of Malaga. He has worked at the University of Málaga and the FIMABIS Foundation with research teams in projects related to health. He currently has a grant from the Ministry of Science and Innovation to continue his doctoral studies at the URV. Member of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS putting into practice one of its professional objectives that is to bring research to the clinical reality to offer the population the most effective treatments based on scientific research. From February 2014 to December 2015 he made his thesis Psychosocial support for young cancer survivors with us. Currently he continues collaborating with the Chair of the National University of Distance Education (UNED).

Mark P. Jensen, es Catedrático y Vicepresidente de investigación del Department of Rehabilitation Medicine de la University of Washington School of Medicine (Seattle, WA; EE.UU.). Su programa de investigación se centra en el desarrollo y evaluación de modelos biopsicosociales que expliquen el funcionamiento durante el proceso de envejecimiento de las personas con discapacidad, y también en el diseño y evaluación de tratamientos para reducir la gravedad y el impacto de problemas de salud en las personas con discapacidades físicas. Es autor de cinco libros y de más de 500 artículos y capítulos de libros. Ha sido miembro de numerosos consejos editoriales, entre otros: Consulting Editor de la revista Annals of Behavorial Medicine (1993-1997), Associated Editor de Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (1999-2010) y de Clinical Journal of Pain (2006-2010). Desde el año 2010, es Editor-in-Chief de Journal of Pain. Ha recibido financiación para su programa de investigación del National Institutes of Health y del Department of Education de los Estados Unidos, desde 1989 y de forma continuada; así mismo ha recibido numerosos premios por sus artículos y aportaciones científicas, incluyendo el premio Roy M . Dorcus de la Society of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 2004, el premio Clark L. Hull de la American Society of Clinial Hypnosis en 2009, el premio Arthur Shapiro al mejor libro sobre hipnosis de la Society of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis en 2011, y el premio de la Divisón 30 de la American Psychological Association por las contribuciones a la hipnosis científica en 2012.

Professor of Psychology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Dalhousie University. Vice President of Research at the IWK Health Center (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada). Holds a Canada Research Chair. It accumulates a broad activity of both research and clinical practice in childhood pain. He has published more than 220 articles in specialized magazines, 50 book chapters, 130 editorials, commentaries and book summaries and 13 books. The Canadian Pain Society, the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Pain Society, and the MayDay Foundation have awarded distinguished awards for their contributions to the American Pain Society. research on pain. The American Pain Society has also awarded him the Jeffrey Lawson Award for his actions in favor of the study and treatment of pain. His research is related to the measurement and treatment of recurrent and acute pain, pain in special populations, the study of pain in the social context (family and friends), and the provision of health services for pain problems. It also investigates the use of information and communication technologies in pain and mental health problems. He has been awarded the Martin P. Levin Mentorship Award by the Society of Pediatric Psychology of the American Psychological Association and the Distinguished Contributions Award to Psychology as a Profession by the Canadian Psychological Association . Dr. McGrath has received the Officer of the Order of Canada distinction and has been elected a member of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

PhD in Philosophy from the University of the Balearic Islands. Professor of the Department of Nursing and Physiotherapy of the UIB. The interest in childhood pain results from their professional activity in the children's hospitalization units, specifically with children undergoing surgery and burned. Currently, his research revolves around two axes: (1) the perception and performance of professionals in childhood pain in the hospitalization units of Mallorca and (2) hospital clowns as a therapeutic tool to relieve pain and anxiety .

Doctor in Medicine and Surgery, Master in Clinical Management and associate professor of university. Coordinates the Child Pain Unit of the La Paz University Hospital in Madrid. Dr. Reinoso is the founder and director of the first pediatric pain unit in Spain. In his training as an anesthesiologist he acquired the foundations of the treatment of acute and chronic pain through the use of advanced locorregional blockade techniques. Since 1997, he has been dedicated to promoting the introduction of analgesic novelties in pediatric patients suffering from chronic pain, acute pain or pain due to procedures. He has recently directed the first multicentre study of the incidence of acute pain among children admitted to twenty Spanish pediatric hospitals. He has also developed specific pain measurement tools for children undergoing surgery. He passionately defends the human right of children not to suffer pain, regardless of their age, their vital prognosis or their socio-family environment. In recent years, she has been struggling to implement multidisciplinary units for the treatment of chronic childhood pain that incorporate nursing, psychology, rehabilitation-physiotherapy, pediatrics and anesthesiology that receive a quality certification that allows them to ensure the best care for the smallest patients.

PhD in Psychology from the Rovira i Virgili University. Master in Health Psychology at the University of Bedfordshire Luton (United Kingdom), Master in Psychology of Pain at CESPU (Portugal) and Master in Evaluation and Measurement of Behavior at the URV. Specialist in Pain Psychology and member of the Unit for the Study and Treatment of Pain - ALGOS. He has worked with the Portuguese Cardiology Foundation developing activities for young people on risk behaviors to health. His professional interests in research revolve around the use of psychological techniques in the treatment of chronic pain, the basic and empirical foundations of psychological treatments, with hypnosis and biofeedback, and psychophysiological variables in the experience of pain, especially migraine. She did her Pain and Hypnosis thesis with us in between July 2008 and May 2014. She continues collaborating with us from the University Institute of Lisbon - ISCTE-IUL, in the research group Center for Research and Social Intervention - CIS- IUL.

Doctor in Psychology and Associate Professor at the University of Huelva. Accredited General Health Psychologist. Very interested in the use of alternative therapies in the treatment of pain fruit of the conviction of its complementarity with psychological techniques, and as support for Inter / Multidisciplinary action. Wants to promote a line of research for the analysis of therapeutic benefits and clinical applications of Music Therapy and Mindfulness in the treatment of children and adolescents with chronic pain

Dr. Rocío de la Vega is a postdoctoral researcher at the Children's Research Institute of Seattle under the supervision of Dr. Tonya Palermo. She completed a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral fellowship, awarded by the Generalitat of Catalonia, at the University of Washington under the supervision of Dr. Mark Jensen in 2017. Her thesis mHealth: a new and complementary way to help young people with pain. State of the art, development, and usability testing of two Smartphone applications won the international mention and the extraordinary prize of the URV. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the Rovira i Virgili University (Spain) in 2014 under the supervision of Dr. Jordi Miró. Her research interests are mainly focused on self-administered distance interventions for pain management (eHealth and mHealth) and on the understanding of the mechanisms of change that take place during treatment to improve their effectiveness. She is also interested in the interrelationships between sleep and pain. She continues collaborating with us from the research group Pediatric pain and sleep innovations lab of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute.