PhD StudentKatrin Schäfer, BSc, MSc

katrin.schaefer@meduniwien.ac.at
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katrin-Schaefer-8
@SchaeferKatri
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-1579-6783

About Katrin Schäfer

Katrin completed her master’s degree in Psychology with a specialisation in Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Vienna in 2022 with distinction.

From 2016 to 2018 she worked as a teaching assistant for Medical Psychology at the Medical University of Vienna. She organized and led transdisciplinary seminar groups on medical history and psychological interviewing. In 2020 she was an intern at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Vienna General Hospital (AKH), and at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, and Psychotherapy at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Campus Virchow Klinikum).

During her master’s she became a research associate at the Karl-Landsteiner-Society’s Institute for Lung Research and Pulmonary Oncology in 2022. She worked in various research projects on digital mind-body-interventions and their effects on stress in healthy as well as in chronically ill individuals. Over the past 10 years, Katrin has gained experience in different areas of psychosocial care, for example in personal assistance and fully assisted facilities. She is also a qualified yoga teacher since 2019 and regularly gives studio classes. In 2023 she became a member of the Community Health Lab, a research associate for the Co-Captain Project on cancer prevention in Individuals experiencing Mental Ill-Health, and a PhD student in Public Health at the Medical University of Vienna. Katrin is interested in approaches to improving the health at the individual, group and society level and how participatory research can combine science-based health promotion and the lived experience of the people.

Psychologists are trained to describe the human psyche and behaviour, but may overlook structural, social, and economic factors and their influence on the individual. The experience of mental ill-health and health promotion should not be mutually exclusive.
Katrin Schäfer

Biography

Areas of interest

Mental health, health psychology, yoga research, participatory research

Achievements and awards

2022. Best Poster Award, 18th Conference of the German Association of Behavioral Medicine and Modification (DGVM)

Education

2013-2018: Bachelor’s program Psychology, University of Vienna

2018-2022: Master’s program Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Vienna

Since 2023: Doctoral Program of Applied Medical Science, Thematic Program “Public Health”, Medical University of Vienna