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Ilari Kuitunen ([email protected])

Research area: Perinatal health, neonatal health, and pediatric infectious diseases.
Research methods: Register studies, and reviews (systematic, scoping, umbrella, meta-epidemiology, and meta-analyses)

Completed PhD thesis supervisions: 8
Completed MD thesis supervisions: 24
Completed BM thesis supervisions: 2

Currently supervising 11 PhD thesis students and 31 MD thesis students and 4 BM thesis students.

Duodecim 2025 list of the most influential persons in healthcare
Martti Hämäläinen Price 2025 – Northern-Savo Doctors’ Association
Licentiate thesis supervisor of the year 2024 – Kuopio Medical Students
Young Researcher 2024 – Finnish Pediatric Society
Clinical Research of the Year 2023 – The Finnish Junior Doctors Association

Ilia Moshnikov ([email protected])

Ilia (Ilja) Moshnikov is a university lecturer in Karelian language and culture, as well as the subject coordinator. His teaching portfolio includes courses such as Introduction to Karelian Language and Culture, Karelian as a Language of Media and Literature, Karelian Dialects, and Karelian and Russian. Moshnikov defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Eastern Finland in 2021 on the topic Variation of the NUT Participle in Border Karelian Dialects. The opponent for the dissertation was Professor Johanna Laakso from the University of Vienna. Before his current position, Moshnikov worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Karelian Institute. The research Moshnikov has conducted after his dissertation focuses on the use and visibility of the Karelian language on the internet. He has examined Karelian-language websites from the perspectives of virtual linguistic landscape studies and language ideologies, and has also investigated the use of social media in Karelian as well as the visibility of the Karelian language on X (formerly Twitter). Moshnikov worked as a visiting researcher at the Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies at the University of Vienna in spring 2023, and as a teacher of Finnish in the same department during the 2023–2024 academic year. In the 2024–2025 academic year, he worked as a university lecturer in Karelian and Finnish at the University of Eastern Finland’s School of Humanities. Since autumn 2025, he has been working as a university lecturer in Karelian language and culture.

Ilkka Jormanainen ([email protected])

My major research fields are computational thinking, educational data mining, educational robotics, learning environments, technology education in K-12 settings, as well as ICT for development. I’m currently supervising four PhD research work in these fields, and teaching some of the related courses at the School of Computing. I was recently leading “ICT for Education in Eritrea” project, funded by Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the HEI-ICI capacity building program. I have been involved in several EU initiatives, for example CONSTRUIT! and TACCLE3 (Erasmus+ KA2), as well as in eCraft2Learn H2020 projects. I have been playing an active role in development of the annual SciFest science and technology festival at Joensuu. I was also leading the festival for three years at the beginning of 2010s. I have gained teaching, research, and project administration experience from several international collaboration initiatives from number of European and African countries, for example Eritrea, South Africa, Nepal, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique.

Ilkka Pyy ([email protected])

Enclosed lecture courses, my essential duty is a weekly research seminar in Human Geography, in which I supervise both Bachelors’ thesis and Masters’ thesis. For me, the fieldwork is also highly important geographical method of learning and that is why I have coordinated two decades a Nordic-Baltic network, which moderates intensive two-week course in a yearly basis. Course themes and venues varies according to ongoing research projects. My research deals with polity changes of the welfare state, core-periphery relations and rural/regional development policies as well as the politics of local involvement, service provision and environmental concern. Currently, my research focuses on the impacts of green and silver economies for urban and land use planning in urban and rural areas. Finally yet importantly, I act as tutor teacher for Masters’ degree Human Geography students and work in departmental group for developing teaching.

Iman Zarei ([email protected])

I completed my PhD in Human Nutrition, minor in Molecular Biology & Biotechnology at the University of the Philippines joined with Colorado State University, USA. My PhD research focused on identification of dietary biomarkers in cereal bran using metabolomics from two human intervention studies in adults and children and determination of cereal bran property in inhibiting bacterial pathogenicity in mouse cell line. As my cognate was Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, during my PhD program, I also worked over three years as lar at the Grain Quality and Nutrition Center as well as the Genetic Transformation Laboratory of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, the most renowned rice research organization in the world. My work at IRRI included rice metabolomics, identification rice varieties with high protein content, and genetic modifications of rice for vitamin A (Golder Rice project) and iron and zinc bio-fortification.  I currently work within the LongITools project (https://longitools.org) to study the effects physical activity and diet exposures on human health in determining the risks of chronic cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

Impact Factor (I Factor) -project

ImpactFactor (I-Factor) -project aims to strengthen the cooperation between the firms in Eastern Finland and UEF Business School students and researches in order to create sustainable and impactful activities which benefits the business life in North Karelia and North Savonia.

Ina Pöhner ([email protected])

Early during my scientific career, I focused on studying protein-protein interactions by computational methods. During my PhD, I shifted my focus to protein-small molecule interactions and their modulation in the context of computer-aided drug design for neglected tropical diseases. As a passionate Linux-user and administrator, I moved on to dive into aspects of scientific databases, data management, biocuration, and FAIR data (data that is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).

My research at UEF finally connects all the dots: I currently study various anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-protozoal, and anti-cancer targets, utilizing powerful combinations of computer-aided drug discovery and modeling techniques, programming, databases, and artificial intelligence (AI). My research focuses primarily on data-intensive drug discovery problems and the application of AI in drug discovery pipelines. For example, my recent projects involved several semi-automated modeling and docking studies for hundreds of target candidates drawn from Omics-level datasets and AI-accelerated billion-scale virtual screening efforts.

Given its data-intensive nature, my research heavily relies on high-performance computing resources and the Finnish supercomputers hosted by CSC – IT Center for Science. As a CSC Scientific Computing Ambassador for UEF, I act as a bridge between UEF’s researchers and CSC experts and aim to support other UEFians in making the most of CSC’s services and resources – Whether you would like to learn more about how you can utilize CSC super- and cloud computing resources in your research, get support for data management, or join some of the various courses and training opportunities offered by CSC, feel free to reach out!

Inna Lisko ([email protected])

I am Inna Lisko, Ph.D. I serve as the Country Team Operator of Finland in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). I have done my PhD in gerontology and I hold a Master’s degree in Sport Science (exercise physiology as my main subject).

I have worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in my own research project funded by the Research Council of Finland and the Juho Vainio Foundation. In my project I examined physical and cognitive decline across the life-course. I have also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in the research group of Professor Miia Kivipelto.

Before joining the University of Eastern Finland, I worked for a year as a Specialist at Laurea University of Applied Sciences in a project called Ikäkyky, led by Research Director Leena Forma. The project focuses on the functional capacity, rehabilitation, and health benefits of the aging population during the years 2017–2021.

Ira Virtanen ([email protected])

I provide, study and train supportive communication for relationships in which support is an essential part of shared goals. My research expertise is social support in various contexts and relationships. I currently research co-supervision and attempt defining ‘henkinen tuki’, the Finnish cultural term for emotional support. Additionally, I have focused on the experiences of vulnerability, friendships, intergroup contact, and immediacy in initial interactions on virtual platforms (ORCID). I have studied and worked in New Zealand, Belgium, France, Romania and the United Stated (Fulbright alumna of Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University, 2010–2011). I have supervised a little over 100 theses and a doctoral dissertation. In UEF, I do research for the Philosophical Faculty’s School of Humanities.

At the Researcher Training Services, I coach peer mentors from doctoral researchers (UEF) and from postdoctoral researchers (YUFE pilot). I teach in courses such as Research Supervision and Peer Mentoring and Collegial Relationships. Organising monthly ReTS have Coffee virtual events are my joyous responsibility. I create and maintain supportive materials for doctoral researchers such as Supporting the Doctoral Journey; Pitching Your Research, and  for who prepare to defend their dissertation in public defence, Support for Communication in Public Defence.

For doctoral supervisors, I maintain an online platform Toolkit for Supervisors that has varied materials and videos for self-study the supervision competencies. I provide regular training for all our supervising research staff (e.g., Supervision Plan as a Tool for Doctoral Supervision; Relationships in Doctoral Supervision: Communication, Collaboration, and Community; Solid Foundation for Successful Supervision Relationship; From rejections to resilience – Effective ways to support your doctoral supervisee after peer reviews and grant rejects).

At UEF Centre for Continuous Learning, I have had the privilege to coach communication competence for research and academic leaders. In addition to my academic career, I coach companies and third sector organisations in their various communication needs (e.g., media interviews; public speaking in English; challenging interaction situations; supportive communication in helplines). I am also a certified solution-focused brief-therapist.

Feel free to make use of the audiovisual materials I have created to support for communication competence in public defence, or watch my TEDx Talk on friendships.

On my science communication, media engagements and societal interaction, see the Finnish profile page.