Biographies
Course staff
Anne H. Berman
Anne H. Berman, PhD, is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Karolinska Institutet. She has an intense interest in human behavior and, apart from psychology, has studied urban planning and law. Anne has been researching criminality and substance abuse issues for many years and is the initiator of a simple self-report drug screening test, the DUDIT, used in countries all over the world. She is the author of 40 international publications, and 30 other scientific or popular publications, including three books. Every week, Anne balances psychotherapy work with substance users, and research on digital interventions for problematic alcohol and drug use. Always inspired by a broad perspective, she particularly loves teaching behavioral medicine. Her work for this course is supported by the International Society of Behavioral Medicine, for which she is Education and Training Chair.
Sakari Suominen
Sakari Suominen, MD, PhD, is Professor of Public Health at the Nordic School of Public Health and Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine at the University of Turku. His main scientific interest is the association between sense of coherence – and related concepts of life meaning – with health and illness, both in cross-sectional and longitudinal settings. An additional special interest concerns health and welfare differences between the Finnish speaking population of Finland and Swedish and other migrant groups. Other research interests are the health of children and adolescents as well as public health management. Concurrently, Dr Suominen leads a research group with three full-time researchers at the Folkhälsan Research Center in Helsinki. He has published 80 international and 20 national scientific articles, as well as 46 other scientific or popular publications. Dr Suominen is chair of the Finnish Behavioral Medicine Section of the Finnish Society of Social Medicine and Nominations Chair on the International Society of Behavioral Medicine Board.
Gabriele Biguet
Gabriele Biguet, MSc, is a licensed physiotherapist, PhD candidate in Medical Science and university lecturer in physiotherapy at the Department of Neurobiology, Caring Sciences and Society, Division of Physiotherapy, Karolinska Institutet (KI). Her research focuses on body awareness and the process of acceptance in patients with long-term pain. As lecturer, she has initiated a number of innovative advanced courses including Physiotherapy in mental health, Reflective learning and evidence-based physiotherapy, and Effective treatment in groups. Since 2008, she has shared responsibility with Anne H Berman for the inter-professional course in Applied Behavioral Medicine given twice a year. Gabriele Biguet is chief editor of two books: The meaning of the body in mental health - a physiotherapeutic perspective (2012) and Reflective learning and continuing professional development (forthcoming). Her role in this course has been that of pedagogical coordinator.
Guest lecturers
Olov Aspevall
Olov Aspevall, MD, PhD, currently works at the Public Health Agency of Sweden. He has been a clinical bacteriologist since the 1990s and for the past five years he has served as an infection control doctor.
John Axelsson
John Axelsson, PhD, is Associate Professor at Karolinska Institutet where he leads a research group in the interdisciplinary field of sleep, immunology and health. With his research he aims to increase knowledge and awareness of how sleep in the rapidly developing 24-hour society affects immune functioning and cognitive processes. John Axelsson is a popular course leader and lecturer within medicine and psychology. He is often engaged by organizations outside academia and for the general public. His research has rendered a large media interest and has been covered by news agencies such as the BBC, CNN and Huffington post.
Johan Giesecke
Johan Giesecke, MD, PhD, is Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet (since 1996) and he has served as Chief Scientist of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) since 2005. Between 1995 and 2005, he was State Epidemiologist for Sweden; during this time he was active in efforts to harmonise infectious disease surveillance and control within the EU. Spending a sabbatical year at WHO headquarters 1999-2000, he led the group developing the new International Health Regulations. Research interests include epidemic modelling, HIV/STIs, and late sequelae of acute infections. He has published some 150 scientific papers, has written a textbook on infectious disease epidemiology and co-edited another.
Giorgio Grossi
Giorgio Grossi, PhD, is Associate Professor and researcher at the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University, Sweden. He is also a licensed psychotherapist working with cognitive behavioral treatment of stress-related disorders at the Stress Clinic Foundation (Stressmottagningen.com), also in Stockholm, Sweden.
Maria Hagströmer
Maria Hagströmer, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Division of Physiotherapy, Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm, Sweden. Her area of teaching expertise is physical activity and health, physical exercise, measures of physical function and fitness, physiotherapy and health promotion. Her current teaching activity as a senior lecturer is mainly in the Physiotherapy program and in single subject courses at the advanced and doctoral levels at KI. Some of the single subject courses she has developed are given as distance-based courses. Dr Hagströmer is a member of the Pedagogic Academy at KI and is responsible for pedagogical development at the Division of Physiotherapy. Her research focus is on physical activity and sports medicine with focus on prevention. See also http://ki.se/en/nvs/maria-hagstromer-research-group.
Erik Hedman
Erik Hedman is a licenced psychologist, licensed psychotherapist, reserach group leader, and associate professor in clinical psychology at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.The research in my group is focused on treatment and assessment of these disorders, with emphasis on health anxiety, i.e. a chronic and debilitating fear of acquiring somatic disease. Central aims of the research are also to investigate how psychological treatment works when provided in regular clinical settings and how well treatments work when delivered as via the Internet. I was part of the founding team of the Internet Psychiatry Clinic (www.internetpsykiatri.se) which is one of the leading clinics in the field of Internet-based treatment.
Maj-Lis Hellénius
Maj-Lis Hellénius, MD, PhD, is Professor of Cardiovascular Prevention atKarolinska Institutet andHead of the Lifestyle Unit at the Department of Cardiology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.Dr Hellénius received her medical degree and her doctoral degree in cardiovascular prevention from the Karolinska Institutet. Her research focuses on the role of physical activity and diet in prevention of cardiovascular disease. She is the investigator of a cardiovascular prevention program in primary health care, cohort studies and intervention trials focusing on lifestyle and cardiovascular health. She has been the supervisor of 11 doctoral students and has served as a national and international expert in panels addressing physical activity, diet and cardiovascular health. Since the mid-eighties, Dr Hellénius has been engaged in promotion of physical activity and physical activity on prescription; she has published 106 peer-reviewed papers and a total of 200 publications.
Kerstin Jeding
Kerstin Jeding, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist with a master’s degree from Uppsala University (1996) and a doctoral degree in Psychology from Oxford University, UK (2007). She has participated in research on stress, sleep and the psychosocial work environment at the National Institute for Psychosocial Medicine and at Karolinska Institutet. She has been working clinically at The Stress Clinic Foundation (Stressmottagningen.com) in Stockholm, Sweden since the year 2000, and has published self-help books based on the methods she and her colleagues use in the clinic. Her books have been translated from Swedish into Finnish, Norwegian and German.
Karoline Kolaas
Karoline Kolaas is a licensed psychologist working at Gustavsberg Primary Care Clinic. As a clinician, for several years she has been part of a team striving for access to evidence-based psychological treatments in primary care. Karoline is also a adjunct lecturer at KI, cooperating with KI and Stockholm University to develop high quality practical placements for clinical psychology students in primary care. She also has a special interest in healthy lifestyle promotion and is undertaking research on how lifestyle behaviors interact with mental ill-health and how digital interventions can help patients in their lifestyle behaviors.
Ulf Lundberg
Ulf Lundberg, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Human Biological Psychology. He is affiliated with the Department of Psychology and Center for Health Equity Studies (CHESS) at Stockholm University. His main research interest is the association between work, stress and health with a special focus on gender and socioeconomic differences in health and the relation between stress and musculoskeletal disorders. He has published more than 200 scientific articles and several books. Two of his international books are: Lundberg, U., & Cooper, C. (2011). The Science of Occupational Health. Stress, psychobiology and the new world of work. Wiley-Blackwell; and Allvin, M., Aronsson, G., Hagström, T., Johansson, G., & Lundberg, U. (2011). Work Without Boundaries. Wiley-Blackwell.
Lillebil Nordén
Lillebil Nordén, PhD, is a behavioral scientist at the Stockholm Center for Dependency Disorders at Karolinska University Hospital and the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. As a behavioral scientist she focuses on dependency disorders among hospitalized patients with infectious diseases and supervises staff regarding the care of these addicted patients. Lillebil Nordén is a clinical researcher and her specialty is the prevention of blood-borne infections, lifestyle and risky injecting behavior among persons who inject drugs. Her ongoing intervention study is about changing risky injecting behavior using the method of Motivational Interviewing (MI).
Aleksander Perski
Aleksander Perski, PhD, is Associate Professor of Medical Psychology at Karolinska Institutet. He studied Psychology at Warsaw University, Poland, and Uppsala University, Sweden and is a licensed clinical psychologist. His post-doctoral studies were at the National Institute of Aging, NIH, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. During the past 15 years he has been actively involved in both basic research and development of methods for treatment and rehabilitation of patients with stress-related stress disorders, primarily exhaustion syndrome (clinical burnout). This work has been done within the framework of the Stress Clinic Foundation (Stressmottagningen.com), a clinical and research center associated with the Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet. Besides 60 scientific publications, he has co-authored books in medical psychology as well as written several popular science books about stress and health.
Peter Sandberg
Peter Sandberg MSc, Innovation Strategist, RISE - Research Institutes of Sweden. Peter has a M.Sc in Mechanical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. He has worked as an entrepreneur, consultant and intrapreneur in media, telecom and online business and currently works with Innovation Strategy and Innovation Management at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. He is the producer and host of Swedens leading podcast on innovation - Spinnovation and a frequent public speaker on innovation.
.
Agneta Ståhle
Agneta Ståhle, PhD, is Professor of Physiotherapy at Karolinska Institutet. She earned her PhD in 1999 in Cardiology on the topic of exercise and training for older people with heart disease, and became Associate Professor in 2006. In 2009 she was the first to be awarded the Bengt Fridlund scientific award for "significant work in the cardiovascular field." She is one of the inventors of FaR®, Physical Activity on prescription and is editor of FYSS - Physical activity in the prevention and treatment of disease (2003, 2008, and 2015). She is an expert adviser to the Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment (SBU) and to The National Board of Health and Welfare, as well as a member of the Swedish Society of Physiotherapists' scientific board and Senior Alert. She is head of her own research group and held a Senior research position financed by the Swedish Research Council between 2008 and 2014 with a focus on health, care and prevention for the elderly. She is the principal investigator (PI) for the BETA-Study - Improving functional gait and balance in elderly persons with an increased risk of falling, and is also one of the PI:s for a joint study on falls and fall prevention in Sweden and Norway among individuals with traumatic spinal cord injury.
Marie Söderström
Marie Söderström, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist with a master’s degree from Uppsala University and a doctoral degree in medical science from Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm, Sweden. Her research area is focused on sleep, stress and burnout and she is currently participating in research projects at the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University. She has been working as a clinical psychologist at the Stress Clinic (www.stressmottagningen.com) in Stockholm since the year 2000, and has published self-help books based on cognitive behavioral therapy methods for improving sleep and fatigue. Marie is also often engaged in teaching activities towards clinicians and students regarding how to handle sleep problems in patients.
Jennifer Söderdahl
Jennifer Söderdahl is a licensed psychologist and psychotherapist working at the Internet Psychiatry clinic as a clinician and co-director. The clinic is located within the Stockholm County, Southwest Psychiatry.
Emma Swärdh
Emma Swärdh, PhD, is a physiotherapist and university Lecturer at Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm, Sweden. Her area of teaching expertise is physical activity in rheumatic diseases, pain, and physical activity promotion. She currently teachesmainly at the Physiotherapy program at KI. She has been working clinically at the Karolinska University hospital within the area of rheumatology, and also within a patient organisation, mainly lecturing on physical activity promotion. Her research focus is on physical activity in rheumatic diseases.
Carl Johan Sundberg
Carl Johan Sundberg, MD, PhD, is a licensed physician and Professor at the Dept of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet (KI), where his research group focuses on physical activity and genetic, genomic and epigenetic mechanisms in the adaptation of human skeletal muscle. He is also Coordinator for Science & Society at the President's office at KI and has designed several exhibitions on physiology and medicine at science centers, as well as having worked in the medical units of Swedish and American media. Carl Johan Sundberg has also written textbooks in biology for 12-16 year-olds and served as scientific secretary in a parliamentary commission. At KI, Sundberg is course director for courses on Human Physiology, Medicine for Journalists, From Science to Business and Popular Science Communication for medical and PhD students. He is regularly invited to speak on the communication of science at national and international meetings. He has received the Karolinska Institutet Prize for Teaching Excellence, a Certificate of Commendation for Communication in the Life Sciences from EMBO, Ångpanneföreningen's Prize for Research Communication and the European Commission's Descartes Communication Prize for Excellence in Science Communication 2005. He is the founder of Euroscience Open Forum, which provides a unique opportunity for people interested in science and technology to influence where European science is going and to meet academic and industrial scientists, decision makers from all fields as well as journalists from all over the world (see www.esof2014.org). Carl Johan is also chair of Research!Sweden – an independent advocacy foundation promoting biomedical research for health and prosperity.
Tores Theorell
Tores Theorell, MD, PhD, is a physician who served clinically and specialised in internal medicine including cardiology in the years 1967-1978. After the clinical years he turned to social medicine and stress research. He was appointed Professor of Clinical Stress Research at the National Institute for Psychosocial Factors and Health in 1980 and then became Professor of Psychosocial Medicine at Karolinska Institutet and at the same time director of the National Institute for Psychosocial Factors and Health. His research has been on the epidemiology and physiology of stress. Longitudinal designs and controlled evaluations of psychosocial interventions have been typical.
Technical preparation of the Virtual Patient infrastructure
Technical implementation of the cases and task coordination:
Andrzej Kononowicz, PhD, visiting researcher at Karolinska Institutet
Extensions of the Open Labyrinth system:
Natalia Stathakarou, MSc, Karolinska Institutet
Cloud-infrastructure to run the virtual patient service:
Tomasz Bartyński - Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH Maciej Malawski - AGH University of Science and Technology Piotr Nowakowski - Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH and the VPH Share project
Virtual Patient Actor
Nigel Harvey (John Nilsson in our virtual patient scenes)
Nigel Harvey is an English actor, musician, director, producer & performing artist who has been living in Sweden for 20 years. He has a worked on a variety of corporate training films for Ericsson, Pharmacia, Telia, Skanska & Skandia and is currently working at Musikaliska as Artistic Producer. Nigel has been Artistic Director for a stage production of Carmina Burana which was performed at the Stockholm Performing Arts Festival and Tällberg Forum and has directed, amongst others, Globens Lucia Concert, The Christmas Concert at The Royal Opera, The Skokloster Festival, London the Musical & The Masked Ball at Dalhalla music festival. During the Cultural Capital Year 1998 he was asked to direct an opera for children at the Haga Performing Arts Festival. The opera was performed in Stockholm before travelling to the Dalhalla Music Festival where it won acclaim as the Best Childrens Production of that year. He has also patented an historical character Hindrik Hassenberger and as such has been retained to do Royal Performances at the Skokloster Castle. In recent years Nigel has worked in Central Europe as a drama consultant & artistic director.
Additional acknowledgements
The development of this course has been supported by the International Society of Behavioral Medicine, particularly Professor Joost Dekker, PhD, past President and Adrienne Stauder, MD, PhD, President.We also thank the following individuals for help in developing the course: Professor Petra Lindfors, PhD, Dept of Psychology, Stockholm University; Laura Widman, PhD, University of North Carolina; Associate Professor Nabil Zary, PhD, Karolinska Institutet; Cormac McGrath, Karolinska Institutet; Lars Uhlin, instructional designer, Karolinska Institutet; Johanna Gårdman, Helen Gelin and Thomas Nixon, Karolinska Institutet, for all films; and Anneliese Lilienthal, medical illustrator, for the course banner and ICBM 2014 posterabout the course. Also, thanks to the Karolinska Institutet Library for help with references, and to Martina Thörnqvist and Peter Gustafsson, beta- testers. Carina Bois and Jon Kramer, Karolinska Institutet, have acted as the linchpins for the project - without themwe would not have had this MOOC ready in time.Many heartfelt thanks to everyone involved!
Teaching assistants
Sara Herring
Sara Herring is working towards her MSc in Clinical Psychology at Karolinska Institutet (KI), currently in her 4th year of a five-year program. Alongside her psychology studies, Sara has been working extra as a research assistant for KI research groups and affiliated departments of Karolinska University Hospital. The latest research assistant post was with Anne H Berman´s group at the Center for Psychiatry Research, where Sara helped out with innovative treatment technologies in assessment and treatment of alcohol and drug problems.
Jens Fust
Jens Fust, MSc, is currently working as a research assistant at the Departments of Clinical Neuroscience and Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet. Some of his previous work experience includes time at the Stress Research Institute in Stockholm, studying the relationship between working environment and sleep.
Jonas Rafi
Jonas Rafi, MSc, currently works as a research assistant at Stockholm university within the field of problem gambling. His current project is an evaluation of preventive measures at the workplace for minimzing the prevalence of problem gambling. His prior experience includes motivational interviewing, both as a therapist and as a counselor. He enjoys programming and learning new things in R.
Course Production Team
Carina Bois
Carina Bois works as an Educational Technologist and Project Manager at the Department of Educational Technology Support at Karolinska Institutet University Library and has worked as Project Manager for the project team that has created this MOOC. Carina has worked for many years with faculty to implement the university’s Learning Management System in both distance and face-to-face courses at the university.
Jon Kramer
Jon Kramer is an experienced learning designer and interactive producer who works as Educational Technologist and Project Manager at Karolinska Institute. His role with this MOOC has been as Technical Producer. Jon is a licensed upper secondary school teacher with over 10 years in the classroom and has a Master’s degree in teaching with an emphasis in media, advertising and communications. His primary focus is to provide creative strategies and digital solutions for learning and development.
Lars Uhlin
Lars Uhlin works as an Educational Developer at the Unit for Medical Education at Karolinska Institutet. He has long experience of Health Care Education and has for the last 15 years been involved in a broad range of educational development work in different settings both on the national and international arena. Some of Lars main focus areas are professional development and educational design within a framework of problem-based learning, interprofessional learning and e-learning.
Film production team
Thomas Nixon
Thomas Nixon is the film coordinator for all the MOOC films produced here at the Karolinska Institute. Over the years at Karolinska Thomas has produced approximately 800 medical and research films as well as development of interactive 3D e-learning tools. His team has in total produced almost 100 MOOC films with many more to come. Thomas' role has also been to assure that the quality and essence of the films produced hold true to what makes Karolinska Institute a name of respect. Working with such productions for the edX-platform has been excitingly challenging, exhilarating and an inspiration in knowing that not only do we educate the future medical fields, researchers and care givers of Sweden but now we even reach the world on an entirely unprecedented scale. In other words to say one is humbled is an understatement in its self.
Helen Gelin
Within the MOOC project Helen has been a member of the film team. Together with her colleagues Helen has filmed and produced all the films for the course: Behavioral Medicine (about 60 films). "We have worked with 17 different teachers and it has been incredibly interesting, rewarding, fun." As a learning technologist at the Karolinska Institutet Helen has developed and produced web-based learning materials. She also gives support to faculty at the university on how to use different ICT-tools in order to enhance learning.
Johanna Gårdman
Johanna is part of the film team for KI MOOC courses. Together with coworkers Johanna has filmed and produced about 60 videos for Behavioral Medicine. "It’s been a fun and interesting journey and I’m excited to see the course go live in the edX-platform." Johanna's role as an educational technologist at KI involves giving advice and support to KI's teachers for the use of ICT tools in their courses. As a media producer Johanna is involved in creating teaching materials that support different online learning situations.