Dr. Laboni Akter, MBBS, MPH, MSc is a medical doctor and a doctoral researcher in Neurology at the Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Eastern Finland (UEF). Her current research focuses on dementia prevention and Brain Health, with a particular emphasis on the role of biomarkers in dementia prevention trials across high-, middle-, and low-income countries. She is currently working with the FINGER Study (Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability) in Finland, the WW-FINGER Network spanning more than 70 countries, and the BELIEVE Study (Bangladesh Longitudinal Investigation of Emerging vascular and Non-vascular Events) in Bangladesh, conducted by the University of Cambridge, UK.

She has a strong background in Medicine, Public health, and Global health research and was awarded the Finland Scholarship 2023 for Excellence in her application to the Master of Public Health program (specialized in Epidemiology) at UEF. Previously, she received the Chinese Government Scholarship to pursue a Master of Public Health (MPH) at Southeast University, China.

Dr. Akter has worked in academic, clinical, teaching, and field research settings across Finland, China, and Bangladesh. Her experience includes teaching positions at Wuhan University of Science and Technology and Guizhou Medical University in China, as well as research and professional roles at the Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition (UEF), WHO, IEDCR, icddr,b (Bangladesh), and KCOC (Korea). Her work bridges medicine, epidemiology, clinical research, and global brain health, with a commitment to improving dementia prevention strategies globally.

RESEARCHER

Title of Docent (Research in mathematics education)

I am Lasse Eronen, a Finnish researcher in mathematics education, with a wide range of studies, particularly focused on innovative learning environments, motivation, and sustainable development. My research has targeted various educational levels, ranging from primary school to university level. I am particularly interested in how the design of learning environments and teaching methods can impact students’ motivation and well-being. My research interests also include digitalization in mathematics education, and taking into account students’ emotions and opinions in mathematics teaching. I have researched, for example, the emotional reactions activated by mathematical problem-solving and how to facilitate these in teaching. (ChatGPT, based on 2020-2022 published articles)

TEACHER

Excellent Teaching Practitioner Award

Lasse Eronen: Eronen has years of experience in research-based development of teaching both in collaboration with his closest colleagues and across faculty boundaries. Eronen uses learning analytics to develop his teaching, and he has been in charge of developing self-assessment on the Arviointimaa (Reflection Landscape) platform. Besides utilising student feedback, he also involves students through Master’s theses dealing with the development of teaching. Research-based activities and sharing of practices are highlighted in Eronen’s teaching, and they also constitute part of transferable skills development. (UEF, 2023 Excellent Teaching Practitioner Award statement)

Contact via:
Executive Assistant Maria Kainulainen,
[email protected], tel. +358 50 563 8249.

Laura Hirsto is a professor of educational science, especially research in general education.

Professor Hirsto’s main research topics include the study of learning environments from the perspectives of learning processes and teaching and pedagogy. In recent years, Hirsto has led an extensive project funded by Business Finland related to learning analytics and learning analytics pedagogy, which has studied the learning of basic education students, university students and vocational education students with the help of diverse learning analytics data. The project has built learning environments that support self-regulated learning through a variety of pedagogical approaches (such as phenomenon-based learning and flipped classroom). This study has been built on intensive collaboration with researchers of computer science and educational sciences, and it has utilized institutional-level data and traditional log data in conjunction with extended learning analytics data, as well as observation of teaching and learning contexts and interviews with teachers and pupils/students.

Hirsto worked as a university lecturer at the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Theology and Faculty of Education for numerous years. Since 2015, she has worked mainly in the School of Applied Educational Sciences and Teacher Education at the University of Eastern Finland, first on the Savonlinna campus and then on the Joensuu campus. In 2020, he was elected as the Professor of Education at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Eastern Finland. He holds the title of docent in educational psychology at the University of Helsinki.

At the moment, I am working on my research project funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation: Precarious Intimate Networks of Migration and Work – Intimate and Intersectional Infrastructures of Low-Wage Migrants (PRECAINFRA). In the project, I examine migrants’ housing-related experiences

Previously I worked as a postdoctoral researcher in a research project funded by the Kone Foundation on Formations of hybrid manhood in the experience economy (EXMEN 2022-2025) in which I study the “new work” of male influencers and in particular the relationship between dogs and men.

In 2013-2017, I worked at the University of Jyväskylä as a PhD student in the project Industrial Citizenship and Labour Mobility in the EU funded by the Academy of Finland, and then at the University of Eastern Finland as a university teacher in the Department of Social Sciences (2017-2019), and as a junior researcher in the project Lean production model in public services: new formations of work and gender (LEWOGE 2018-2022) funded by the Academy of Finland. In the LEWOGE project, led by Professor Eeva Jokinen, we studied the effects of the Lean management model in public health care organisations.

In my PhD research (2024), I investigated the struggles of migrants working in low-wage sectors as part of the (re)production of the Finnish welfare state https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/95524.