Maria Karekla

University of Cyprus

Maria Karekla, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, peer-reviewed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy trainer, and Associate Professor at the University of Cyprus. She is the Head of the “ACTHealthy: Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Medicine” laboratory. She obtained her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. She completed her residency at the University of Mississippi’s Medical Center and Veterans Administration Hospital. Her research focuses on health promotion and the investigation of individual difference factors (especially psychological flexibility parameters) as they relate to the development and maintenance of various behavioural difficulties (especially anxiety, eating, and health related problems). Additionally, she researches the treatment of these difficulties utilizing process-based and Contextual Behavioral Science-based principles and innovative delivery methods (e.g., digital interventions, virtual reality).

She is a recipients of numerous (>100 scientific peer reviewed publications) local, European and international grants, and awards by (among others) the European Council and Pompidou’s group, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy. She is currently the chair of the Clinical Psychology Doctorate committee and program at the University of Cyprus. She is also the convenor of the European Federation of Psychology Associations’ Psychology and Health committee and a member of the e-health task force. She is a former Chair of the Cyprus Bioethics Committee on Biomedical Research and a former member of the Cyprus Psychologist Licensing Board. She presently serves as President of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, which awarded her a status of “Fellow” in 2019. In 2021, she became a fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, whereas in 2018 she was nominated as Cyprus “Woman of the Year” in the Academic/Researcher category. In 2017, her first psychotherapeutic children’s story book, including her illustrations for the book, was nominated for the National Literary Award in the category Children/Adolescents. She is a TEDx speaker and she has been hosted and interviewed about her work by numerous newspapers, podcast hosts, TV and radio stations, nationally and internationally.

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