Download Curriculum Vitae.
Kirsti Lonka, PhD (psychology) is Professor of Educational Psychology at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland and Director of Research Group of Educational Psychology since 2005. She is also Academic Director of EdTech start up incubator Helsinki Education Hub (HEH) in collaboration with University of Helsinki and City of Helsinki (2024-2026). You may see her citations on https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/kirsti-lonka/publications/ and on her Google Scholar profile. Kirsti is an award-winning university teacher and a founding member of Teachers’ Academy of University of Helsinki since 2013 and their first President (2013-2014). She is a professor member of Helsinki University Collegium.
Kirsti is also Extraordinary Professor, @Optentia Research Focus Unit, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa (2016-2025), Member of Board of Trustees, Sharjah Education Academy (SEA), United Arab Emirates (2022-2027), and Science Rector of Kymenlaakson kesäyliopisto, Finland.
Kirsti Lonka is leading WP2 (with Consortium PI Terhi-Anna Wilska, JYU) in a major strategic project “Digiconsumers – Learning to be digital consumers and how to improve young people’s financial skills in a technologically driven consumer society“, funded by the Finnish Strategic Research Council CULT Program (2019-2025).
Kirsti Lonka is a popular keynote speaker around the world. She has published more than 150 refereed articles, conference papers and book chapters. She has also published plenty of textbooks and popular writings. The languages of her publications are Finnish, English, and Swedish (also translated in Estonian, Spanish, Korean, Thai, Croatian, Arabic, Russian and Chinese). Her specialties are learning and motivation in various contexts, digital learning, epistemic cognition, psychology of writing, schools, teachers and higher education. She is also engaged in workplace learning, entrepreneurship, companies and vocational education. She works to promote innovations in schools and higher education and her group develops engaging learning environments (ELE) in various contexts.
Previously she was as Professor of Medical Education in Karolinska Institutet, Sweden (2001-2005) and a visiting professor (J.H. Bijtel Chair) in University Medical Centre Groningen, The Netherlands (2006-2008). In 2015-2017, she was the Associate Editor of Elsevier journal Learning and Instruction and before that, British Journal of Ed Psych.
SOME RECENT PREVIOUS PROJECTS:
Kirsti was a CO-PI in a recently ended project Bridging the Gaps – Affective, cognitive, and social consequences of digital revolution for youth development and education (2018 – 2021) funded by the Academy of Finland (PI Professor Katariina Salmela-Aro).
Kirsti Lonka was also PI of a project “Phenomenal Teacher Education – Engaging learning environments” (Uutta luova opettajankoulutus – sulautuvat oppimisympäristöt) funded by the Ministry of Education, Finland (2017-2019), as well as PI in collaboration with Dr. Markus Talvio in EU Erasmus+ project Learning2Be (on social and emotional learning) (2017-2019).
Principal Investigator of the Project “Mind the Gap – between digital natives and educational practices” (Funded by the Mind Program of Academy of Finland (2013-2016). The previous projects were 3Spaces (2015-2017) as well as Sustainable Education Design (TEKES, BEAM Project, 2015-2017) and Engaging Working Culture (TEKES TUTL Project 2015-2017). Previous major project was PI of WP4 Task 1.1. (Learning Environments) in RYM Indoor Environment project (2011-2015) See outcomes: rym.fi.
Previously Kirsti Lonka was the Vice Dean of Faculty of Behavioural Sciences (2011-2013). Before that, Kirsti Lonka was Foreign Adjunct Professor at the Department of LIME, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden 2007-2011. She was also J.H. Bijtel Visiting Professor, University of Groningen, The Netherlands (2007-2008). She was working as professor of medical education at the Department of LIME (Learning, Informatics. Management and Ethics), Karolinska Institutet in 2001-2005. In 1996-2001 she worked as the Director of Development and Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland. During that time the medical program became problem-based.
Kirsti Lonka finished her Master of Arts Degree in psychology and started her research career as a Junior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki in 1986. She did her PhD course work at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE, University of Toronto, Canada) in 1988-1989. Her two daughters were born 1991 and 1995. Kirsti Lonka finished her PhD at the Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, in 1997.