Faculty

Tharina Guse is a counselling psychologist, full professor and Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria. Her research focuses are on psychosocial well-being, positive psychology interventions and psychological strengths such as hope and gratitude. Closely aligned with this broad focus she also conducts research on the application of hypnosis for the promotion of mental health and well-being. She has published extensively and edited three volumes related to well-being research.

Chiara Ruini is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Bologna, Department of Psychology. Since 2006 she has been teaching the course “Clinical Applications of Positive Psychology” for students attending the Master Program in Clinical Psychology. Chiara Ruini has authored more than 70 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals. She authored the books "Psicologia Positiva e Psicologia Clinica" (Il Mulino, 2021) and  "Positive Psychology in the Clinical Domains" (Springer, 2017), and has edited a book entitled “Increasing Psychological well-being across cultures” for the Springer series Positive Psychology across Cultures. She  serves the Editorial Boards for international Journals such as  the Psychology of Well-being, Theories Research and Practice, The Journal of Happiness and wellbeing. Her research interests are concerned with Positive Psychology, Clinical Psychology , resilience, and Psychotherapy

Professor Linda Theron, D. Ed., is an HPCSA-registered Educational Psychologist. She is also a full professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria, South Africa and extraordinary professor in Optentia Research Unit, North-West University, South Africa.  Her clinical and research interest is in child and adolescent resilience, with a special interest in how situational and cultural context shapes the resilience of African young people. Linda has authored/co-authored 150+ peer-reviewed academic publications relating to child and youth resilience. In addition to serving on the editorial board of multiple journals, she serves as an (action) associate editor for Child Abuse & Neglect (Elsevier) and Journal of Adolescent Research (Sage). The National Research Foundation of South Africa rated Linda’s resilience- focused work as internationally acclaimed and she is an elected member of the Academy of Science, South Africa (ASSAf).

Irma Eloff is a professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria, a registered educational psychologist and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).  She is highly rated as a social scientist by the National Research Foundation in South Africa (B2). She is a former dean of Education at the University of Pretoria and was the first woman to hold this position. In 2018 she was awarded a Förderkreis 1669 Wissenschafft Gesellschaftprofessorship at the Institut für LehrerInnenbildung und Schulforschung (Institute for Teacher training and School research) of the University of Innsbruck. She has authored 100+ scholarly articles and book chapters and has edited six book publications. Irma is an alumnus of the Universities of Pretoria, Stellenbosch, Northwest and the GIBS Business School. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Innsbruck, Austria.  Her research focuses on wellbeing, quality education and sustainability.

Maretha Visser is a counselling psychologist and professor of Psychology at the University ofPretoria. Most of her work focus on community psychology, which include the development, implementation and evaluation of large-scale community projects to promote health and mental health in  communities. A large portion of her research focused on the psycho-social aspects related to HIV, such as behavioural prevention, psychosocial interventions for infected and affected populations, as well as HIV-related stigma. Recent research includes interventions to mitigate the effect of psychosocial problems such as violence, substance abuse, gender inequality and child abuse on the mental health in communities. Most of the research is done through participative and mixed methods designs and include some aspects of positive psychology.