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Erasmus+UPPScAle Project Team

Executive Board Members:

  • 
Brona Fullen (lead WP1), University College Dublin
  • Harriet Wittink (co-lead WP2)
  • Ligia Rusu (lead WP3)
  • Snjezana Schuster
  • Alan Kacin (co-lead WP2)

The Project Team:

  • Catherine Doody 
  • Han van Dyik
  • Urska Puh
  •  Andreea Rosca
  •  Ivan Jurak

Project Co-ordinator
Lead: Work Package 1

Brona Fullen is an Associate Professor in the UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, Dublin, Ireland. She holds a BSc Physiotherapy (UUJ) and PhD (UCD) degrees.

Clinically Brona specialized in the topic of pain working in Pain services at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, St Vincent’s University Hospital and Tallaght Hospital Dublin. 

In UCD she teaches in the area of pain science to both undergraduate and postgraduate students.  She is also Director of the MSc programmes in Advanced Physiotherapy Studies programme.

Her research areas of interest include the assessment and rehabilitation of people with chronic pain in a range of conditions including musculoskeletal dysfunction, obesity, and spinal cord injury. She has supervised MSc and PhD students to completion, and has presented her research at national and international meetings.

Brona is a past President of the Irish Pain Society and is currently President of the European Pain Federation EFIC. 

Co-Lead: Work Package 2

Harriët Wittink is a Professor and chair of the Lifestyle and Health research group, University Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

She studied physiotherapy in Utrecht, the Netherlands (BSc). She holds a Master of Science in Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine from the Institute of Health Professions at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from Boston University on the topic of physical activity, physical fitness and low back pain.

After extensive clinical experience providing physiotherapy for patients with chronic pain, she now heads a research group that investigates topics in chronic pain, such as dropout, relapse, health literacy, illness perceptions and behavioral change, physical activity and falls in stroke, physical activity in children with disabilities and motor development in infants.

She occasionally teaches on pain but is mostly involved in doing research and the (co)writing of papers and chapters.

Co-Lead Work Package 2

Alan Kacin is Associate Professor of Physiotherapy and Head of the Physiotherapy Laboratory at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ljubljana, specialising in exercise science and exercise therapy in musculoskeletal disorders. 

He has 20 years of experience in teaching and training undergraduate and graduate students in various areas of applied health sciences. Throughout his academic career, he has been involved in conception, development and evaluation of bachelor's and master's degrees in physiotherapy and interdisciplinary doctoral programmes in health sciences. 

His research focuses on the safety and efficacy of blood flow restricted exercise training to reduce arthrogenic skeletal muscle inhibition, particularly in patients with various lower extremity joint pathologies. In cooperation with the National Institute of Public Health of the Republic of Slovenia, he initiated an interdisciplinary pilot project "New clinical pathway for patients with back pain". By introducing a triage physiotherapist and various other interdisciplinary approaches in the management of chronic low back pain, the project has open possibilities for optimizing effectiveness of back pain management at the primary level of healthcare in Slovenia.

Lead Work Package 3

Ligia Rusu is a Professor at University of Craiova, in the Sport Medicine and Physical Therapy Department.. She is a sport medicine physician and sport trauma rehabilitation.

Ligia is also a sport medicine physician at the Sport Medicine Department Emergency Hospital Craiova, Romania. Now she is head of Sport Medicine and Physical Therapy Department. 

Ligia is involved in research in the field of physical activity prescription, sport trauma rehabilitation, musculoskeletal ultrasound , biomechanics, and sport medicine. She is also a PhD students coordinator. Further, Ligia is active within the research activities in the research laboratory of the research institute www.incesa.ro. and publishes a lot of papers.

Ivan Jurak is a Senior Lecturer and acting head of the undergraduate Physiotherapy programme at the University of Applied Health Sciences (ZVU), Zagreb, Croatia. 

He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Physiotherapy from ZVU and a master’s in Health Sciences from Alma Mater Europea Maribor, Slovenia. 

He is currently enrolled in a PhD programme in Statistics at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

At ZVU he teaches Biomechanics and Clinical Kinesiology to physiotherapy and occupational therapy students. His interests are musculoskeletal rehabilitation, applied statistics and data synthesis.

Andreea Rosca is a university assistant of the University of Craiova- Sport Medicine and Physical Therapy Department. 

She has also been working with special needs children as a physiotherapy teacher practitioner for the last five years. 

Andreea has engaged in multiple courses and is currently a PhD student, due to graduate in the following weeks. 

Andreea’s position requires conducting research and publishing articles regarding results that she has come across as a physiotherapist.

Catherine Doody is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health Physiotherapy and Sports Science in University College Dublin (UCD) Ireland. 

She qualified in Physiotherapy in UCD, completed an MSc in the University of East London UK, an MSc Mindfulness Based Interventions and a PhD in UCD. 

Catherine has worked as a Physiotherapist in Ireland and the UK. She has held positions as Head of Subject and Associate Dean of Physiotherapy, Director of the BSc Physiotherapy and Director of the MSc in Neuromusculoskeletal Physiotherapy in UCD.  

Her research interests are in the identification and classification of musculoskeletal pain states according to underlying pain mechanisms, in addition to the evaluation of multidisciplinary approaches to the treatment of chronic MSK pain including Mindfulness Based Interventions.

Urška Puh is an associate professor of physiotherapy at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ljubljana, specialising in neurological physiotherapy and pathokinesiology. 

She has been teaching physiotherapy for 20 years and has been involved in the development and evaluation of the undergraduate programmes, the master's programme in physiotherapy, and the interdisciplinary doctoral programme in health sciences. Currently, she is leading a postgraduate core course Patokinesiology of Gait. 

Her main research area is the study of the effects of various physiotherapeutic procedures on brain function and movement after stroke. She is also extensively involved in physiotherapy assessment and movement analysis, focusing on clinical assessment but also advanced technologies and biomechanical analysis. 

Han van Dijk is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He studied physiotherapy in Utrecht, the Netherlands and holds a master in manual therapy.

Since graduation he has worked in both in-patient and out-patient care with patients with neurologic and musculoskeletal complaints. His expertise is in chronic musculoskeletal pain and exercise therapy and he has worked in collaboration with pain clinics for over ten years. 

Within the University of Applied Sciences he teaches at the bachelor’s degree of physiotherapy on musculoskeletal complaints and (chronic) pain among other subjects. He is involved in initiatives that bring education, research and practice together. His PhD-research is on how to teach physiotherapists in primary care to work with chronic pain from a biopsychosocial perspective.

Snjezana Schuster is an assistant professor at the University of Applied Health Sciences, Department of Physiotherapy, and at the Faculty of Kinesiology in Zagreb, Croatia. 

She teaches physiotherapy theory and practice, women's health physiotherapy, and women in sports. She has a specialty in pain management during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. She holds master's degrees in both physiotherapy and archaeology. 

Biomedicine, health, and social sciences (Kinesiology – Kinanthropology) are her areas of study. She conducts scientific research in the fields of physical anthropology, human paleopathology, and experimental physiotherapy. She was awarded several scholarships (EU) for her work in science and research. She is a member of the ER WP Working Group on Education Matters.

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Centre for Translational Pain Research

University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
T: +353 1 716 7777 | E: ctpr@ucd.ie