Mariana Sousa Leite

Mariana Sousa Leite holds a master’s degree in Psychology, from the School of Psychology of the University of Minho, since 2018. Mariana completed her master dissertation in the Fertility Studies research group at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University. Mariana was particularly interested in exploring women’s decision-making process about using fertility preservation to prevent age-related fertility decline. Mariana is a member of the Portuguese Psychologists’ Association since 2019.

In January of 2020, Mariana started her PhD in the University of Cardiff, integrated in the same research group as before, while working together with the Perinatal and Pediatric Mental Health – Laboratory for Integrative and Translational Research in Population Health (ITR), at the Public Health Institute of the University of Porto (ISPUP). Mariana’s PhD is fully funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Mariana has been dedicating herself to the development and evaluation of an evidence-based psychosocial intervention for patients experiencing unsuccessful fertility treatment.

Mariana was in the year of 2018/2019 awarded by the University of Minho with an Excellence Scholarship prize, in the year after with a merit-based scholarship by the General Directorate of Higher Education, and earlier this year of 2021 Mariana was nominated for the 2nd year PhD Junior Researcher prize at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University (results are not yet known).

Mariana is a Teaching Assistant since 2020 at the School of Psychology of Cardiff University, teaching the practical component of the bachelor’s statistics module. Over the past three years, Mariana has been taking part in scientific meetings, among which stands out her oral communication at the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) in Vienna, and co-written scientific papers, in particular the one published in Patient Education and Counseling.

Mariana’s main fields of interest span across health psychology, assisted reproductive technology, fertility preservation, parenthood decision-making and evidence-based practice.