Lisa Matos

Lisa Matos is Invited Lecturer, Science Manager, and Researcher at ISPA-Instituto Universitário, whose work focuses on posttraumatic psychological adjustment to refugee trauma. She holds a BA in International Relations, MA in Political Science, and PhD in Clinical Psychology and has 20 years of experience working at the intersection of health and human rights, both in the field and in academics. Dr. Matos has provided subject-matter expertise to, among others, the Council of Europe’s Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons, the European Asylum Support Office, the US Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the Portuguese Representation of the European Commission, to inform national, European and US policies on evidence-based best practices towards migrant populations. At ISPA, she developed the curriculum for and teaches the course “Trauma and Human Rights” and supervises graduate students working on issues of primary and secondary exposure to complex trauma in both forced migrants and first responders.
Dr. Matos’ main research interests include: posttraumatic meaning-making trajectories; cultural idioms of distress; vicarious responses to trauma exposure; religious and faith-based meaning-making.