COFAC

Extended Name: Cooperativa de Formação e Animação Cultural Crl

Country: Portugal

COFAC is a non-profit cooperative, responsible for the management of Lusófona University, recognised by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education in 1998, and is the largest private university in Portugal, integrating 10 HEI in Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Guinea- Bissau.

It has a student body of more than 10.000 students and 1500 teachers and it is structured around 9 (nine) Schools that constitute the main institutional unit and offer 44 undergraduate Degrees, 45 Master Degrees, 11 PhD’s programs and 42 Post- graduation courses. Besides this, the university offers a large number of vocational and continuous training courses accordingly with the life-learning development paradigm.

The University has a large experience in research and project management of European and international projects.

Staff

Professor Pedro Gamito

Pedro Gamito earned his PhD from the University of Salford (UK) in Built and Human Environment in 2002, and the title of Aggregate in Rehabilitation by the University of Lisbon in 2012. Pedro is a Full Professor and the Director of the Computational Psychology Laboratory at the School of Psychology and Life Sciences and the director of the Research Centre – HEI-Lab – Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab, at Lusófona University. Since 2004 he has been developing, validating and applying numerous virtual reality applications designed for the treatment of anxiety disorders and for the cognitive stimulation of patients with stroke, TBI and Substance Use Disorders. His apps are being use daily in the two largest Portuguese psychiatric and rehab hospitals. Pedro has been engaged in several VR-based simulation projects under EU financing schemes. He has published extensively and is associated editor on several scientific journals in his field. Pedro has participated in several projects in the field of eHealth and contributes to the most relevant professional associations within his line of work. In 2018, he was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Association of CyberPsychology, Training & Rehabilitation.

Professor Micaela Fonseca

Micaela Fonseca holds a PhD in Physics (Universidade Nova de Lisboa [PT], 2011). Micaela is Principal Researcher at HEI-Lab (Digital Human-Environment Interaction Lab) and assistant Professor at the School of Communication, Architecture, Arts and Information Technologies in Lusófona University. Micaela has been engaged in several VR-based simulation projects, she is co-founder of VR4NeuroPain and Games for Good. She has published several scientific papers in ehealth and serious games. Micaela also studied Directing Fiction and Ceramics.