Acta Psychopathologica Open Access

Dr. Rusu Alina Simona

Biography

Alina S. Rusu (biologist and psychologist) has received her PhD title in Natural Sciences (Animal Behavior) in 2004 at University of Zürich, Switzerland. Her research interests are very interdisciplinary ones, combining ideas and models from animal life with knowledge about human emotions and behavior. Alina Rusu is Associate Professor at the Department of Special Education (Faculty of Psychology and Sciences of Education) and member of the Doctoral School Education, Reflection, Development (Psychology domain), Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (ubbcluj.ro). She teaches Animal Psychology, Psycho-Biology of Sexuality (undergraduate level), Animal Assisted Therapy and Activities and Positive Psychology Applied to Inclusive Institutions (postgraduate level). During the last ten years, Alina S. Rusu have published around 30 papers in the fields of: emotion recognition, applied animal behavior, positive human-animal interactions, evolutionary psychology and, recently, in the area of applied educational sciences, i.e. Service-Learning in the direction of developing students civic attitudes and civic responsibility.

Research Interest

Behavior Analysis, Socio-Emotional Development, Facial Expressions of Emotions, Evolutionary Models of Human Behavior and Psychopathology, Human-Animal Interactions, Civic Attitudes.