Meet the Mentors

Professor Satu Uusiautti

What is your area of expertise?
Positive psychology, educational psychology. I study the flourishing and success of the human being, the positive development of the various stages of life and the life spheres. I have studied the phenomenon of success at work in different work contexts a lot.

What are the most interesting or central research topic within this research area at the moment?
The strengths-based approach is an important research topic in education and training. In terms of success, it is interesting to know what are the prerequisites for success in changing environments, which features / factors contribute to flourishing and success also in challenging situations and in adversity.

Are you currently running your own research projects? What kinds of projects?
I am involved in many PhD and post doctoral research projects as a supervisor, and there are a wide range of topics − I collaborate with a number of researchers. My most precent projects have been the Strengths-based Future Guidance Development Project (VAHTO), in which student tutoring was developed in a strengths-based direction to facilitate the transition from higher education to work life, and the Higher education students’ digital skills+ project, in which a Digibagi was created to support higher-education students’ well-being (https://www.digibagi.fi/en/english/). Currently, I am involved, for example, in a development project regarding teacher-students’ strengths-based supervision model, and in university-pedagogy research run by the Lapland University Consortium.

In which area do you want to provide mentoring to doctoral researchers?
Themes in positive psychology, work research, educational psychology.

What was the topic of your own doctoral dissertation? What method did you use in it?
“Tänään teen elämäni parhaan työn”: työmenestys Vuoden työntekijöiden kertomana
[“Today, I’ll work better than ever”: employees of the year describe their experiences of success at work]. The research was two-stage. In the first part, I used mixed methods to study the motivation, experiences, competence and strengths of the successful workers. In the second part, I employed narrative method to research their stories from childhood until to the Employee of the Year nomination.