Sandra C. Soares

Sandra C. Soares is an Associate Professor with Habilitation at the University of Aveiro, Department of Education and Psychology, and a Researcher at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Clinical Neuroscience. Her academic career spans over 15 years, with continuous contributions to cognitive neuroscience, emotion processing, and social cognition research.

Dr. Soares' research interests focus on understanding how emotions such as fear and disgust impact behavior, psychophysiology, and neural processing. She employs a multisensory approach (primarily visual and olfactory stimuli) to investigate these phenomena, examining how emotional processes interact with cognitive functions like attention and memory. Her work integrates evolutionary theories with both basic and applied research settings, including clinical disorders such as Psychotic Disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Social Anxiety Disorders, and Phobias. She maintains strong interdisciplinary collaborations with computer science experts to develop personalized and preventive mental health care systems.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent focus on the intersection of emotion, perception, and cognition, with particular emphasis on how threat-related stimuli are processed. Her work spans multiple methodologies including psychophysiological measurements, behavioral experiments, and neuroimaging techniques. A significant portion of her research examines olfactory-emotional interactions and their implications for understanding social cognition in both neurotypical populations and clinical conditions.

Dr. Soares leads the Social Cognition and Body Odors Team, where she combines experimental-cognitive approaches with clinical applications. Her research has significant implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying social cognition deficits in clinical populations and developing more effective interventions. With 199 publications and over 37,000 reads on ResearchGate, her work has garnered considerable attention in the scientific community, with 1,411 citations reflecting its impact in the field.