Administrative decisions on child support in early childhood education and care
Andrew Agbaje ([email protected])
Prof. Agbaje is an award-winning physician and professor (associate) of clinical epidemiology and child health who investigates the causal relationships of aerobic fitness, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, obesity, insulin resistance, dyslipidaemia, and metabolic syndrome with arterial, cardiac, liver, and kidney structure and function from childhood through young adulthood.
Prof. Agbaje is the world’s 3rd highest ranked scholar, 2nd best in Europe and best in the Nordics in arterial stiffness specialty according to ScholarGPS 2025 global ranking.
Research group Website https://urfit-child.com
American Society of Nutrition Flemming Quaade Award Video Interview
Prof. Agbaje discovered childhood tobacco smoking as a cause of premature cardiac damage and identified that smoking prevalence increased 15 times between the age of 13 to 17 years. He also discovered arterial stiffness as a novel risk factor for paediatric obesity and insulin resistance, identified adolescence as the critical time to interrupt fat mass-insulin resistance pathologic cycle, and demonstrated light-intensity physical activity as a highly effective antidote for reversing excessive fat deposit induced by childhood sedentariness. Recently, he discovered waist-to-height ratio as a specific surrogate for fat mass but not muscle mass that could replace BMI in assessing childhood obesity. Subsequently, he was interviewed LIVE on BBC World News TV to discuss the novel findings.
In December 2024, the American Heart Association selected Prof Agbaje’s study as one of the world’s most significant advances in cardiovascular research in 2024. In October 2023, two of Prof. Agbaje’s publications were placed in the Top 1% highly cited paper in the academic field of Clinical Medicine, while a third publication was placed in the Top 1% highly cited paper in the academic field of Biology & Biochemistry by Clarivate’s Web of Science.
He has single/first-authored original papers in highly prestigious journals such as JACC, Diabetes Care, and Nature Communications. He was interviewed LIVE on BBC World Service Radio Newsday programme on 15th Dec 2023, BBC Radio Devon on 16th Jan 2024, and BBC World News LIVE TV programme on 14th March 2024. The University of Eastern Finland recorded a podcast interview of his findings as well as a video.
The Endocrine Society in US recorded a podcast interview of his research and discussed his research in the prestigious Endocrine Magazine March 2024 edition. He gave a press conference at the ENDO 2024 congress in Boston, US. He was interviewed by the European Association for the Study of Obesity, a federation of 36 European countries’ professional associations and subsequently had a video interview at the European Congress on Obesity.
His research has received extensive press coverage, with over 2,000 media mentions in 2022 and 2023 in outlets such as BBC, CNN, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mirror, BILD, Infobae, Yahoo Lifestyle, Yahoo Sport, US News & World report, DocCheck, MSN, WebMD, Medscape, The Conversation, Jerusalem Post, Helsingin Sanomat, YLE, etc, potentially reaching a global audience of more than 4.5 billion. The equivalent advertising value of these news articles is more than 30 million US dollars.
He is the principal investigator of the urFIT-child research group and has strong collaboration with world-renowned pediatricians, exercise physiologists, epidemiologists, and adult clinicians in Canada, US, UK, Germany, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, etc.
He received the prestigious inaugural American Society of Nutrition Foundation-Novo Nordisk Foundation Flemming Quaade Award for Innovative Approaches to Childhood Obesity with 500,000 Danish Kroner (€67,000 / 70,000 USD) prize. the 2024 EASO-NNF for New Investigator Award in Childhood Obesity with a 300,000 Danish Kroner (€40,000 / 44,000 USD) prize. Other awards are the Endocrine Society Award for outstanding abstract, American Heart Association’s Elizabeth Barrett-Connor Research Award in Epidemiology and Prevention (once), Jeremiah and Rose Stamler Research Award (twice), Early Career Investigator Award for Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine (Once), and Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award (four times).
He co-authored an American Heart Association Scientific Statement on Environmental Exposures and Pediatric Cardiology, published in Circulation. He had a video discussion of the Scientific Statement. He has given invited talks at the largest mother and child center in Canada – CHU Sainte-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital Center, Canada, European Society of Cardiology Congress, European Congress on Obesity, Endocrine Society Congress in the US, Artery Society Congress, etc.
He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Children’s Health and Exercise Research Centre (CHERC), Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
He is an Associate Editor in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia, and Muscle (JCSM), serves on the editorial board of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB), and mentors early career editorial board members. He also serves on the editorial board of Pediatric Exercise Science journal.
He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC), Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC), an elected Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA), an elected Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine (FNYAM), and an elected member of Sigma Xi. These titles of honour, symbol of excellence and lifetime achievement recognizes his significant contribution to cardiovascular field in Europe and America.
He is an expert advisor to the World Health Organization and European Association for the Study of Obesity’s task force on preventing childhood obesity.
Primary email is [email protected]
Secondary email is [email protected]
Cloneria Jatileni ([email protected])
I facilitate the collaborations between the University of Eastern Finland’s department of teacher education and our partner universities in the global north and south. In this collaboration, we work with the departments of education at the University of Turku in Finland, the University of Namibia in Namibia, and Stadio Higher Education in South Africa. Generally, I am involved in the GINTL African collaborations with UEF on educational research. My work includes applying for funding on GINTL projects at UEF and identifying possible research areas. Our research areas are teacher education/training, digital learning, early childhood education and educational policies. I am also a doctoral student at UEF. My dissertation focuses on digital learning for Mathematics and policy development in Namibian basic education.
Ismo Pellikka ([email protected])
I teach in the basic, subject and advanced courses in classroom teacher education and supervise Bachelor’s theses. In class teacher training, I am involved in the implementation of the evangelical religion course, as well as the history and social studies courses. I am responsible for the pedagogy of life-religious studies course. In early childhood education, I am responsible for the unit on “Similar and different humans together” (consisting of moral education and development, history education and religious & multicultural education). I am very happy to lecture on Finnish educational system and school life for our exchange student from all over the world.
I am also the academic supervisor of the Pedagogy and Teaching for Sustainability Master´s Degree.
Johanna Heikka ([email protected])
I study pedagogy, the professionalism of early childhood education teachers, pedagogical leadership and the quality of early childhood education. I am responsible for the development of the Master’s degree programme in early childhood education and work as a leadership teacher. In addition, I supervise internships, theses and doctoral dissertations. I lead the annual Early Childhood Education Leadership Forum. I am a docent at the University of Oulu.
Jouko Heikkinen ([email protected])
Teaching tasks in primary school teacher, early childhood education teacher and subject teacher training.
Lotta Aavikko ([email protected])
I am a PhD and project researcher at the University of Eastern Finland. My research interests include promoting inclusion in society, both in my dissertation from the perspective of digital inclusion of older people and people with developmental disabilities, and in various projects, for example on support for children in early childhood education and digital literacy of teachers. Previously I have analysed focus group interviews with peer tutors in digital literacy for older people, conducted observational research on digital support network workshops, and collected unique material from peer tutors in digital literacy for people with developmental disabilities remotely, using AAC support methods. Lastly, I interviewed peer tutors of digital literacy for older people in individual and pair interviews in Teams as part of a project we conducted with the Centre of Excellence in Ageing and Care Research (CoE AgeCare) at the University of Jyväskylä.
Lotta Saariluoma ([email protected])
I work as a project researcher for the OpeSegr project. My background is in teacher education (early childhood education and preschool teacher), from which I have since moved to the side of research. I have worked on both research and development in child protection (THL), continuing education in the fields of education and teaching, and on various issues related to educational equality and inequality. My research themes focus especially on the relationships between education, politics and society, the intersectional factors of early childhood education and schools, as well as teacher segregation. In my research, I use both quantitative and qualitative methods.
Marja Syrjämäki ([email protected])
My responsibilities in the field of special education primarily include early childhood special education teacher (VEO) training: supporting professional growth as well as supervising pratical training and theses. My research interests focus on the structures of child support in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and inclusive pedagogy that strengthens children’s peer interactions and participation.
Research Gate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marja-Syrjaemaeki/research