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Dr Arlinda Cerga Pashoja

Senior Lecturer - Psychology

Dr Arlinda Cerga Pashoja

About Research

Email: arlinda.cergapashoja@stmarys.ac.uk
Tel: 07787 447507

Biography

Arlinda Cerga Pashoja is a dedicated Associate Professor in Psychology with over two decades of experience in both the NHS and academia. Arlinda has been instrumental in developing innovative pedagogical strategies allowing her to adapt her teaching methods to suit a diverse range of learners.

Arlinda holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning, awarded in 2018, and has achieved the status of Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She effectively utilizes varied teaching modalities, including face-to-face, online, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Notably, a MOOC she contributed to on FutureLearn, titled "Covid 19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus," attracted over 230,000 students globally within weeks of its launch.

At St Mary’s University, Arlinda serves as the module convenor for three core modules of the MSc Psychology of Mental Health. She is also actively involved in supervising student dissertations and mentoring MSc and PhD students, demonstrating her commitment to fostering student success. Arlinda’s teaching methods emphasize active learning, inclusivity, and technology integration, with tools like Vevox facilitating real-time student engagement and feedback.

In addition to her teaching role, Arlinda is a prominent researcher in global mental health, having successfully secured £1.7 million in funding for various national and international projects. She currently leads three global studies, focusing on digital interventions to enhance mental health across Europe and Australia. These projects, funded by the European Commission/UKRI, include MENTBEST, RECONNECTED, and PROSPERH. Arlinda's research contributions have resulted in numerous research outputs, including important published papers in prestigious journals, establishing her as a leading figure in the fields of digital and global mental health.

Beyond her academic responsibilities, Arlinda actively engages with external organizations and governmental bodies to improve mental health policies and practices. Her involvement in collaborations with the WHO and Ministry of Health in Albania and various European institutions underscores her commitment to making a tangible impact in mental health advocacy and research.

Arlinda’s teaching and research endeavors are firmly grounded in her passion for mental health, and she continually strives to create an inclusive, dynamic, and impactful educational experience for her students and the wider community.

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Research

Areas of research supervision

  • digital mental health
  • dementia
  • humanitarian mental health
  • global mental health

Research profile

Arlinda's research work in the last 10 years has focused on digital interventions for mental health. She is the UK-Principal Investigator for MENTUPP, which aims to improve mental health in the workplace by developing, implementing and evaluating a multilevel intervention targeting mental health difficulties in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the construction, health and ICT sectors.

Arlinda has previously been the Principal Investigator of ImpleMentall, an EC-funded consortium that aims to implement digital interventions for common mental health problems in the EU and Australia. Arlinda is leading the research work in Albania and Kosova, where community mental health teams are implementing an intervention called I Fight Depression as a treatment for mild and moderate depression. She has also managed an EC-funded, multinational RCT called E-Compared, which evaluated the effectiveness of blending computer-supported therapy for depression with face-to-face CBT sessions in 13 European countries.

As a researcher, Arlinda has previously led a multi-national RCT funded by the European Commission (EC) called Openbook EN, which aimed to develop software that assisted the reading abilities of people with autistic spectrum disorders in the UK, Bulgaria and Spain. She also provided research assistance on CONNECT, a multicentre, European-wide project that investigated the costs and outcomes of healthcare in people suffering from PTSD following war in the Balkans. This project was funded by the EC and hosted by Queen Mary University of London.

Arlinda has been invited to and featured in podcasts and over 10 media broadcasts on national TV in Albania and Kosova.


Media enquiries

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