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 university teacher in the Faculty of Philosophy, the School of Educational Sciences and Psychology. In addition, I work with my doctoral dissertation in 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.
Lotta Valve ([email protected])
My research interests focus on the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible (dissertation in 2014 on the Book of Malachi) and tradition history of the Hebrew Bible. Other fields of interest are reception history of the Bible in Second Temple Judaism and in the New Testament. I am also interested in the reception and influence of the Bible in more modern times, for example in art and literature. My overall interest thus lies in the diachronic survey of the Bible in the broadest sense.
Luca Giudice ([email protected])
I am the first in Italy to have completed a full academic career in Bioinformatics. As a Postdoctoral Researcher, I specialize in bioinformatics, data analysis, network science, and artificial intelligence. I focus on developing and applying machine learning to patient similarity networks for investigating neurological disorders, such as Simpati and StellarPath methods to study Alzheimer’s disease and Stroke. I am particularly interested in networks because they transform complex data into interpretable graphs (helping in pattern recognition), and offer an interpretable and explanative data structure for machine learning algorithms. My experience includes successfully solving real biological problems, collaborating with experts in various scientific fields, and self-learning mathematical and biomedical concepts.
Lukas Kohl ([email protected])
I am a broadly interested biogeochemist and environmental chemist. My current research studies the the role of boreal forests and peatlands in the methane cycle, and the nitrogen cycle in agricultural and natural environments. I also direct the SIG Stable Isotope Laboratory maintained by our group.
Lyydia Muurainen ([email protected])
I’m working as a doctoral researcher at the Inverse Problems Research group at the UEF. In my thesis, I work with machine learning-based surrogate modeling for risk assessment and water quality prediction at mining sites. Waste rocks at the mining sites cause an environmental problem as leaching releases acid and harmful substances from the rocks which contain elevated levels of heavy metals and at atmospheric conditions chemically reactive minerals. Current reactive transport models (RTMs) for leaching are computationally expensive, so we intend to replace those models with computationally cheaper models while utilizing machine learning.
My thesis is done in collaboration with Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and University of Bonn.
Maarit Koponen ([email protected])
Maarit Koponen is Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Eastern Finland. After obtaining her PhD in Language Technology at the University of Helsinki in 2016, Koponen worked as a lecturer at the University of Turku and a post-doctoral researcher for the MeMAD Project at the University of Helsinki.
Koponen leads the research group Translation and multilingual communication in digital society (TraDiSoc), and is the PI of the UEF sub-project Linguistic barriers, algorithms and epistemic capabilities of the research consortium Democratic epistemic capacities in the age of algorithms (DECA, 2022-2028), funded by the Strategic Research Council established within the Research Council of Finland. She collaborates also with the University of Turku research project Narrative Text, Translator and Machine. Her research focuses on translation technology, particularly the use and impact of automatic translation and multilingual generative AI both in professional translation workflows and in non-professional settings.
Koponen is the academic head of the Master’s Degree Programme in Linguistic Data Sciences and minor in Translation Studies. Her teaching focuses on theoretical and practical aspects of translation and technology. She supervises Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations on topics related to translation technology.
Maarit Sireni ([email protected])
I am a Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor at the Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland. My research focuses on rural societies, everyday wellbeing, social inclusion, safety, place attachment, and rural transformation. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from human geography, rural studies, and sociology, I examine how social, cultural, material, and environmental factors shape everyday life in rural communities.
My recent work has explored topics such as rural safety and insecurity, access to services, social inclusion, health and wellbeing, community resilience, and the meanings people attach to places. I am particularly interested in how rural residents experience societal change, including demographic shifts and service centralization. I have also contributed to research on place attachment, affective experiences, and rural identities through studies of how landscapes, memories, emotions, and cultural narratives shape people’s connections to places. My work seeks to advance understanding of rural lived experiences and to contribute to more inclusive and sustainable rural development policies.
Research interests: social inclusion, wellbeing, safety and security, place attachment, affective geographies, community resilience, rural development, and qualitative research methods.
Courses: Rural Geography, 5116228, 5 cr (lectures in Finnish).
Mahidere Ali ([email protected])
A doctoral researcher, MD, MPH, in the field of epidemiology. Current research focuses on exploring the risks, consequences, and pathological reversal mechanisms of obesity.
Currently working under the urFITchild Research Group
Research group description: UndeRstanding FITness and Cardiometabolic Health In Little Darlings (urFIT-child) is a multi-disciplinary and multi-collaborative research group in cooperation with renowned global experts across several continents, viz; Oceania, North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia founded with the objective of maximizing evidence in order to improve cardiovascular and metabolic health of children and adolescents.
Research group Website https://urfit-child.com
Mahnaz Khalili ([email protected])
My PhD work focuses on characterization of water-saturated aquifers using seismic methods. This research project is done under a Collaborative agreement between the University of Eastern Finland and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. The main supervisor to this study is Timo Lähivaara.