Paula Vagos

Paula Vagos is an Assistant Professor and researcher in Psychology at University of Aveiro with additional affiliation at University of Coimbra's Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences. She serves as an Integrated Member of the Health Team and is affiliated with the Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention.

• Current Position: Assistant Professor at University of Aveiro
• Additional Affiliation: Lecturer at University of Coimbra
• Research Center: Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention
• Professional Profiles: CiênciaVitae, ORCID, ResearchGate, Scopus, Publons

Dr. Vagos specializes in adolescent social behaviors with particular focus on social anxiety, avoidance, assertiveness, and aggression. Her research program addresses psychological processes underlying psychopathology and develops psychological interventions based on second wave and third wave cognitive therapies. Recent work has expanded to mental health stigma reduction and acceptance and commitment therapy applications in parenthood. She has published extensively in high-impact journals with over 100 publications and 35,000 reads on ResearchGate.

Her publication record demonstrates strong trends in cognitive-behavioral approaches to adolescent mental health, particularly social anxiety disorder. Recent work shows increasing focus on compassion-focused interventions, psychological flexibility, and cross-generational applications of cognitive therapies. She frequently collaborates with international researchers on validation studies of psychological assessment tools across different cultural contexts.

• Active researcher with publications spanning 2013-2025
• Focus on developing and validating assessment tools for adolescent psychopathology
• Increasing emphasis on compassion-focused interventions in recent years
• Strong international collaboration network

Dr. Vagos has supervised numerous graduate students and research projects focusing on adolescent mental health, though specific student names aren't listed in the available materials. Her research has been supported by various academic grants enabling studies on social anxiety interventions, aggression patterns in youth, and compassion-based therapeutic approaches. She maintains active collaborations with research centers across Portugal and internationally.

She leads research teams investigating the cognitive pathways to adolescent aggression, psychological flexibility in chronic illness, and compassion-based interventions for children and adolescents. Her laboratory work integrates quantitative and qualitative methodologies to examine both clinical and community samples across the lifespan.