Maria Hassandra is Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the University of Thessaly, in the subject area of School Physical Education and Health. She served as Senior Lecturer in Exercise Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2011–2019), where she was awarded the title of Docent in Exercise Psychology. She holds a PhD from the University of Thessaly (2004) and a Master's from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2000). Her research focuses on applying behavioural and motivational theories to develop health behaviour change interventions, with emphasis on physical activity, smoking cessation, substance use disorder treatment, cognitive health in older adults, and virtual reality in exercise. She has secured over €1,300,000 as Principal Investigator or Coordinator across 6 projects, and participated as research team member in 18 further projects with a combined budget exceeding €5,500,000, funded by the EU (Erasmus+, ERC, Horizon), NSRF and Finnish agencies. She has published 76 peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 book chapters, 3 educational textbooks and 25 conference papers, with an active international research network spanning Finland, Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Portugal, Italy, Malta and Cyprus. She has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses for 25+ years. She is main supervisor of 3 ongoing doctoral dissertations, has co-supervised 2 completed PhDs, supervised 40+ master's theses and served as external evaluator on 12 doctoral defence committees. She reviews for 24 international journals and is a member of HSSP, FEPSAC, ISSP and EHPS. She is a proposal evaluator for Erasmus+ Sport, COST and Horizon Europe – Health of the European Commission.

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