We warmly welcome all to join our community by attending the BeCS seminar that features speakers from our network and beyond. Find the current activities and the BeCS seminar schedule here.
If you have any questions about our network, please send an email to Nelli Hankonen.
Professor of Social Psychology, Tampere University
Nelli Hankonen has conducted and led academic research in the area of behaviour change over 15 years.
Contact details: firstname.surname@tuni.fi; phone: +358-40-7657997
Assistant Professor of Exercise Psychology, University of Jyväskylä
Dr Knittle is a health psychology researcher with interests in understanding the motivational processes that underlie health behavior change and understanding how individuals make use of interventions to change their behavior. Keegan has conducted several meta-analyses to identify intervention components associated with increases in motivation, physical activity and weight loss maintenance. He has also developed interventions to promote physical activity among individuals with rheumatoid arthritis and among people with excess risk of cardiovascular disease. These projects involved developing (mhealth) behavior change tools for patients and developing interventions to train healthcare providers to deliver motivational interviews in practical settings.
Complex Systems and Behaviour Change Explorer | Department of Social Psychology, Tampere University | Division of Public Health, Social and Preventive Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University
Matti T. J. Heino studies behaviour change from a systems perspective, with main interests in practical applications of health psychology and behavioural medicine, as understood through the lens of complexity science. His current research focuses on organisational resilience and civil preparedness against various crises – from pandemics to blackouts, climate change, hybrid warfare, and beyond. Therefore, he’s become highly interested in methods to engage communities and workforces in self-organised change and foresight. He has a pre-academic background in the business sector, mostly working with implementation and development of marketing communications, and he is also a trainer in the Finnish “72 hours” preparedness concept.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Austria
Matthias Aulbach is a postdoctoral researcher working at the University of Salzburg, Austria. With a background in psychology, he has worked in the clinical addiction field before starting his PhD in the Behavior Change and Well-being research group at the University of Helsinki. In his PhD thesis, he examined how behavioral impulses towards unhealthy foods can be reduced with simple computer tasks, using a wide range of methods (meta-analysis, EEG, smartphone data from a field trial). He continues his work in this domain at the University of Salzburg, Austria, broadening his interests to include wider research in self-regulation, intention-behavior relations, stress and emotions in health behavior, and mobile health. While eating behavior remains his main focus, he has been including research on physical activity, sedentary behavior, and preferably the combination of multiple health behaviors in his portfolio.
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki
Marguerite has studied the psychological mechanisms behind uptake and maintenance of well-being enhancing behaviors, e.g., mindfulness practice, among adolescents. She has also branched out into loneliness and belonging research, political psychology, and environmental psychology collaborating on a study on acceptance and support for a climate policy adjusting food prices for agricultural emissions. She has previously worked with a variety of subjects in social psychology including subjective well-being, culture, income inequality, justification theory, moral and political psychology, motivation for physical activity, the role of literature in evoking sympathy/empathy, self-enactable motivation and behavior change techniques, and experimental frameworks for governments.
Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki | Researcher, Helsinki University Hospital | Visiting Researcher, University of Jyväskylä
Malin is currently doing her PhD in the psychosocial wellbeing and health behavior of the chronically ill. She is especially interested in how patient perceptions of their illness are associated with various outcomes (e.g. depression and treatment adherence), and how care pathways should be developed to support self-management and overall wellbeing. Malin is currently working in close collaboration with the Helsinki University Hospital and Aalto University in the CleverHealth Network eCare for Me -project, which aims to develop the care of Chronic Kidney disease through digital solutions. Before pursuing her PhD, Malin spent several years working with User Experience Design and user research in IT startups and as a consultant.
Doctoral Researcher, University of Jyväskylä
Eleonoora Hintsa is a doctoral researcher in exercise and health psychology, focusing on the development and validation of an instrument to assess the use of self-enactable techniques for physical activity habit formation. Her work bridges behavioral science and psychometrics, aiming to identify and categorize strategies individuals use to build and maintain healthy routines. More broadly, her research interests include dual-process models of self-regulation, sustainable behavior change, and self-enactment of behavior change techniques. Through her work, she seeks to clarify how small, context-dependent actions can accumulate into lasting behavioral patterns that support physical and psychological well-being.
Postdoctoral Researcher in Sport and Exercise Psychology and Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä
Eeva Kettunen is a postdoctoral researcher working at the University of Jyväskylä. Her PhD research was related to sport and wellness technology and how it can be used to motivate people towards a more physically active lifestyle. Her studies are focused especially on digital coaching as well as on physical activity of teenagers. Due to her sport and exercise psychology background her research interest is combining psychology and the use of technology in order to promote healthier and more physically active lifestyles to various populations. She is also working as a sport and exercise psychology consultant and therefore is also interested in sport psychology related research.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Tampere University
Katri Kostamo is a postdoctoral researcher in the Social Psychology discipline at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Having previously been employed in the areas of health promotion, quality assurance, and knowledge management, she currently applies various mixed methods (triangulation, realist evaluation, and a qualitative survey) for process evaluation of interventions targeting people’s life style changes. This work has been funded by Juho Vainio Foundation and by a collaborator funded by Business Finland.
Katri is especially interested in improving research effectiveness by evaluation, implementation and dissemination, thus increasing research relevance for policy and practice. Her doctoral dissertation explores physical activity by identifying critical incidents related to behaviour change. Focusing on critical incidents in storytelling can facilitate making conclusions about important components in behaviour change interventions.
Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki
Johanna is a social psychologist and behavioural scientist focused on health behaviour change, intervention design and digital services.
Her areas of interest cover:
Doctoral Researcher in Social Psychology, Tampere University
Minttu currently works in the Citizen Shield and MotiStyleSport projects. She has a Master’s degree in social psychology and has analyzed Let’s Move It data on the use of self-motivating techniques for her thesis. For her PhD, she continues to work on intervention process evaluations in the context of Let’s Move It and MotiStyleSport projects. She is highly interested in various fields of social psychology, especially in behaviour change processes and motivational constructs, and behavioural insights in the context of public policy. Prior to her academic career, she has worked in sports coaching, community management, recruiting, and corporate communications.
PhD researcher at the Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp
Meri worked as a research assistant in the Citizen Shield -project, in which she contributed to planning and conducting qualitative and quantitative research. In her master’s thesis, she investigated the association between quality of motivation and intention to adhere to COVID-19 related protective behaviors. The thesis was further developed into a research article, co-authored with the research group. Currently, Meri works as a PhD researcher at the Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
PhD Student, Tampere University
Melina is a licensed psychologist and qualified occupational health psychologist, in addition having a background in sport and exercise psychology. Before starting with her PhD, Melina had been working as an occupational health psychologist with experience in multiple health-related issues.
Melina is especially interested in motivation and behaviour change, and she shares a passion for sport psychology. Currently, Melina is working with her PhD on motivational interaction and professional’s behaviour change in the context of exercise and sports. Melina is a part of Nelli Hankonen’s research group.
Project coordinator, Tampere University
Sarmite is a social psychologist who currently works as a project coordinator in Motivational interaction for promoting physical activity and health project at Tampere University. Previously, she has worked as a researcher in Citizen Shield project, which produced scientific knowledge to protect individuals and the society against epidemics of airborne infections by a combination of behavioral and technological solutions. In addition, she has worked in several other projects, such as Let’s Move It and Behaviour Change Science & Policy (BeSP). She is interested in understanding behaviour change and using behavioural insights to tackle societal issues.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Tampere University and the University of the Arts Helsinki
Elina Renko (PhD, M.Soc.Sc.) is a postdoctoral researcher in social psychology. Her research focuses on well-being, interaction, agency, motivation, behaviour change, and medical humanities. She currently works in the Motivational interaction for promoting Physical Activity and Health-project and in the SMARTS – Sustainable Motivation and Remote Team Success-project at the Tampere University. Further, she works in the the Health, Narrative and the Arts initiative at the University of the Arts Helsinki, and in the project Words for Care: Literature, Healthcare, and Democracy (Kone Foundation, 2024–2026). Disseminating social psychology research is close to Elina’s. She has collaborated with various stakeholders to disseminate a considerable amount of evidence-based intervention materials and manuals. She has also worked as an expert in qualitative methods and methodologies in various multidisciplinary mixed-methods research projects.
Project Planner, Tampere University
Kaisa worked in the Citizen Shield – project, that aimed to tackle pandemics with technological, behavioural and societal solutions. She has previously worked as a clinical psychologist, mostly in the field of pediatric neuropsychology. Kaisa is interested in everything related to metascience and open science.
Researcher, Tampere University
Katarina works in the SMARTS– project, that aims to create new scientific and practical knowledge on remote and hybrid work practices that support employee wellbeing. She has previously worked in developing and studying organizational practices especially in the public sector, as well as working in multiple other research projects on behaviour change science.
From her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Philosophy, Katarina has a passion for quantitative methods, discussing philosophical topics and working to improve individual and organizational wellbeing.
Sustainable Motivation and Remote Team Success
2025–28, Business Finland
The aim of the project is to provide new knowledge on effective, functional, and sustainable hybrid work through top-tier international research, and to implement this knowledge in organizations through interventions and workshops.
Motivational interaction for promoting Physical Activity and Health
2024-25, Ministry of Education and Culture
The project disseminates research-based motivational interaction training (prev. MotiStyleSport), in which physical activity and health professionals learn motivational interaction styles to support intrinsic motivation.
Technological, behavioural and societal solutions for protective actions to tackle pandemics
2020-23, Academy of Finland
This project will explore technological, behavioural and societal solutions to tackling pandemics.
Improving motivating styles: Toward a complex dynamical systems approach
2020-23, Ministry of Education and Culture
This project investigates how to enhance professionals’ training to improve their interaction styles.