Fitxa persona

M. Ángeles Cerezo, Full Professor in the Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychologist. Graduated from the University of Valencia with "Extraordinary Award",  and PhD from the University of Madrid. Her post-doctorate was completed as a Fulbright scholar in the USA at the Child Behavior Institute of the University of Tennessee (UTK) with Dr. Robert Wahler, focusing on aggressive children in disadvantaged families. She created the "Aggression and Family" Research Unit (www.uv.es/agrefa). Her areas of expertise include early interaction and attachment in children; and family conflict and the development of antisocial behavior in preschool and school-aged children. Using observational methodology, she has designed coding systems for the assessment of coercive family processes (Standardized Observation Codes III - SOC III) and for early interaction (Códigos de Interacción Temprana; CITMI-R) with a version for newborns (CITMI-NB).

Dr. Cerezo has developed primary prevention programs to promote best practices for children by supporting parenting. She designed Programa Apoyo Psicológico P/Materno-Infantil (PAPMI©, 1990), a method for strengthening children's socio-emotional development and increasing the number of children with secure attachment that has benefited more than 5,000 families. PAPMI© has led to knowledge transfer to the society with the creation of the UV spin-off the Instituto Psiológico de Infancia y Familia (IPINFA), in 2007; https://www.ipinfa.com/papmi/

She has been Visiting Professor at University College Dublin (UCD)  and Trinity College (TCD) invited by Prof. Sheila Green, a Research Scholar in Residence at the Center for the Study of Family Violence at Northern University of Illinois, invited by Prof. Joel Milner, and, in 2019, a Visiting Scholar at Child & Family Institute (University of Oregon) invited by Prof. Tom Dishion, and at the Lamarsh Center for Child and Youth Research at York University in Toronto, Canada, invited by Prof. Debra Pepler.

Dr. Cerezo has participated in projects in the United States, Europe (BIO-MED and Daphne), and Spain, with regional governments and institutions, and in expert groups both domestically and internationally on issues related to childhood and parenting. She is the Principal Investigator for six National Plan projects. Senior Associate Editor of Child Abuse and Neglect, the prestigious journal of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN), from 2005 to 2010.

Her courses in Master's Degrees relate with child abuse and its consequences (Psychological Intervention in Social Settings), psychological processes in domestic violence (Law and Gender-based Violence), socio-emotional assessment in early interaction (Health Psychology), and early interaction in socio-emotional development (Postgraduate Program in Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology - Child Development and Early Intervention). In the Psychology degree program, she teaches Psychology of Delinquency (last year optional course). Her teaching career spans seven five-year periods, all of which have received positive evaluations.

Professor Cerezo's research program connects theory with practice: practice generating greater knowledge and improving, in turn, interventions. She is the author of more than one hundred articles in national and international journals. She focuses her research activity on early interaction predictors of child attachment quality based on dynamic analysis and the development of child mental health promotion programs. The quality of her research work has been recognized by Her work has been recognized by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain (ANECA) with 6 consecutive six-year periods of scientific productivity, including the Knowledge Transfer award. In 2020, she published for parents and professionals: Si los bebés hablaran: su asombroso mundo emocional (Pirámide) and the English version If Babies Could Talk: A Window into Their Amazing Emotional Life (Austin Macauley)