Ecological Engagement Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Method to Study Human Development

Silvia Helena Koller is Full Professor and Chair of the Center for Psychological Studies of At-Risk Populations in the Department of Psychology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, and Extraordinary Professor at North West University, in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa. She was also a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Visiting Scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health between 2016 and 2017. Dr. Koller has focused her investigations on at-risk populations based on a bioecological theoretical perspective, having developed the Ecological Engagement method to apply Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Theory of Human Developed to empirical studies of child and adolescent development. She has lectured at different universities around the world, such as North-West University (South Africa), University of Zurich (Switzerland), Harvard University, UIUC, UNL, UNC, and ASU (USA), Universidad del Valle, Universidad Nacionalde Colombia, Pontificia Universidad Católica Javeriana, and Universidad de Baranquilla (Colombia), Universidad San Marco, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Universidad Autónoma, and Universidad de Chiclayo (Peru), Pontificia Universidad Católica (Chile), among others, and has advised and mentored many students who are now important researchers in Brazil, Colombia, Portugal and the USA.

Normanda Araujo de Morais is Full Professor in the Graduate Programin Psychology at the University of Fortaleza, Fortaleza, Brazil, where she coordinates the Laboratory of Complex Systems Studies: Couples, Family and Community. Dr. Morais holds a PhD in Psychology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and her main research interests are human development in contexts of social vulnerability, children and adolescents living in the streets, family and community resilience, positive psychology and families formed by same sex couples.