Jacky Ho

Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences | Associate Professor | Director of Macao Observatory for Social Development | Research Coordinator for the Faculty of Health Sciences

Dr Jacky Ho completed his studies in Health Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine and Health from the University of Sydney (Australia), specialized in Gerontology, dementia and sleep science. He established the Department of Innovative Social Work and the Macau Healthy Lifestyle Research Centre, and was appointed as the Head of the department during his service at the City University of Macau. His research interest including 'ageing and health', 'hypertension and CVD', 'chronic diseases prevention and management', 'dementia and social support', 'physical activity', 'sleep physiology and pathology' and 'occupational health and risk'. His current study is focusing on the establishment of community-based telemedicine and chronic diseases management model in Macau and the Greater Bay Area. He has published on international and peer-reviewed journals including 'American Journal of Hypertension', 'Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health', 'Journal of Sleep Research', 'Journal of Women's Health', 'Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology' and 'Journal of Public Health Nutrition', and currently serves as the editorial board member for the Journal of Chinese Life and Death Studies. He has often been invited as keynote speaker at international conferences and symposiums and has served as an expert member on the Macau Social Worker Professional Registration and Licensing drafting committee. Actively participated and served as the Vice President for the Macau Association of Caring For Children, consultant and board member in several organizations including the Macau Social Workers Association, Macau Hypertension Alliance, Macau Alzheimer Disease Association and Hung Wing Sport Association, as well as an life-time member in the Golden Key International Honour Society.

Leanda Care

Associate Professor | Head of the Department of Psychology

Dr Leanda Care is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau, with teaching and supervisor responsibilities also in the Faculty of Business and Law. Leanda currently holds the appointment of Head of the Department of Psychology. She previously held positions at the university as co-coordinator of the MBA program and founding coordinator of the Career Centre. She holds a first class honours Bachelor of Arts in Japanese and Ethnomusicology from Monash University and an MBA from the Melbourne Business School, the University of Melbourne. Leanda completed her Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University in Organisational Behaviour/Organisational Psychology/International Human Resource Management, focusing the research on the factors that influence the performance of expatriates living in the Special Administrative Regions of China. She has broad experience over 30 years in technical interpreting, International Trade and Shipping within UK, Australian, New Zealand and Japanese corporations and university positions covering administrative, teaching, research and governance roles. Leanda has presented her research at local and international conferences in USA, Australia, Italy, China, Hong Kong and Portugal and has published articles in the International Journal of Human Resource Management, Australian Centre for Research in Employment and Work conference proceedings, the Business as an Agent for World Benefit conference forum, Casino and Gaming International and Inside Asian Gaming magazines and continues to write opinion and analysis pieces for Macau Daily Times and Macau Business Magazine on the Greater Bay Area and Corporate Social Responsibility.Leanda is an award-winning academic reviewer and reviews for IJHRM, Personnel Review and major conferences in her field. She is on the editorial review board of the Journal of Global Mobility and the editorial advisory board of Global Business and Organizational Excellence. She has taught Organisational Behaviour, Industrial and Organisational Psychology, Leadership, Business Strategy and Asian Business at undergraduate and MBA levels in Macau, and International Human Resource Management, International business and Japanese language subjects at Monash University and Swinburne University of Technology at both undergraduate and masters levels.More recently Leanda has been in engaged in grass-roots community development projects building regenerative local food systems, sustainable communities and food security. ORCHIDResearcherID

Angus Kuok

Associate Professor | Programme Coordinator for the Department of Psychology

Affiliations:Chartered Psychologist, British Psychological Society (BPS)Industrial-Organisational Psychologist, Hong Kong Psychological Society (HKPS)Prof. Kuok received his PhD degree in Psychology from the University of Macau as well as the higher education program in the Universidade de Coimbra and the University of Cambridge. Besides teaching the University of Saint Joseph, He has had teaching and research experience in other international and local higher education institutes, namely, Edinburgh Napier University, University of Macau, Institute for Tourism Studies and Macao Polytechnic Institute. His major research interests are psychology, organizational behavior and management, topics such as satisfaction, commitment and engagement at work, as well as studies related to the hospitality industry and education system at Macao. His current researches are mainly related to resilience and work engagement, occupational health and well-being, public mental health, as well as AI acceptance, usage and learning in social welfare industry. For academic services, he serves as a journal editorial board member of Forum Psychologicum, and a reviewer of various international journals in the field of Psychology, Education and Management, such as Psychology Reports, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, International Journal of Hospitality Management, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Chinese Management Studies, Tourism Management, and Journal of Career Development.  Other activities engaged (selected ones since 2020):Validation of TD-12 Personality Test (Traditional Chinese Version)§ With the Invitation of ChinaSelect (a HR consultant Company in Asia)§ Published by Pearson§ Work as a Co-investigatorGlobal Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE)§ Examining relationships among societal culture, leadership, and organizational practices around the world§ Work as Country Co-Investigators (CCIs) of MacauPress conference of Depression Screening Macau§ as an organizer and presenter§ prepare the research outputs (see TDM in English; TDM in Chinese; Macau Dioceses in Chinese)§ coordinate the partnership between Hong Kong Mental Health Association and Macau CaritasEffectiveness Evaluation for Casa de Peliseo Sam Meng Chi§ From the magazine of the 35th anniversary of the Macau Association for the mentally handicappedOpinions and Talks in Mental Health Issues under COVID-19§ From Plataforma§ From Macao Monthly§ From TDM talk show

Cynthia Leong

Assistant Professor

Prof. Cynthia Sin U Leong Brochado is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Health Sciences. Born and raised in Macau, she holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, a Master's degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy, and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology. Prof. Cynthia has been cultivating her counselling skills and expanding her research knowledge since her time as a research assistant at the Centre for Psychological Research and Practice while pursuing her Master's degree. During her master's program, she not only completed her internship but also provided counselling services to clients from the community, ranging from adolescents to university students and young adults, all under the close supervision of her mentor. She continued practising even after completing her Master's degree. Besides research and practice, Prof. Cynthia also gained valuable experience in NGO in research, the university library, and alumni and student affairs. Prof. Cynthia has been teaching in higher education for over 10 years. During her teaching career, she also participated in the buddy system initiated by the Faculty at that time, where she was assigned to a batch of students to provide support and guidance until they graduated, after which she would be assigned another batch. Additionally, she assisted in organising academic seminars and conferences. Being a full-time lecturer and fully committed to her doctoral studies, Prof. Cynthia resumed her practice after successfully completing her doctoral degree, with more knowledge and life experience, which she believes will benefit her clients even more in counselling.Her doctoral thesis, titled "Young Adults' Use of Electronic Devices in Macao: A Contribution to Understanding Human Beings in the Digital Era," reflects her deep interest in the intersection of technology and human behaviour. She is a member of the Resilience and Optimism Research Group (RORG). Currently, her research focuses on resilience and optimism, parenting styles, mental health and well-being, self-concepts, strengths use, mindfulness, and social media use among adolescents and young adults. Additionally, she is interested in conducting research in the areas of counselling psychology, educational psychology, public health, and mental health.

Maria Rita Silva

Assistant Professor

Maria Rita Silva's (Assistant Professor, Ph.D. Human Resources Management and Development, Master of Social and Organisational Psychology ISCTE- Lisbon University Institute) major research interests include organisational justice and power dynamics within organisations, cross-cultural psychology and management, employee well-being, and sustainability. Prof. Maria Rita teaches the Bachelor of Psychology, Master of Counselling and Psychotherapy, and Master of Organisational Psychology, modules mainly related to Statistics, Cross-cultural Psychology, and Organisational Psychology.

Vitor Santos Teixeira

Associate Professor

Achieved a Degree in Psychology from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto, where I also completed a Master in Psychological Intervention with Children and Adolescents and completed my doctoral studies in Psychology. My major interest research is "Children’s Time Use" which is the topic of my doctoral dissertation completed in 2010. Since 1996 I have been doing psychological intervention with children and adolescents, as a clinical child psychologist, in the Cooperative O Fio de Ariana in Porto, Portugal. After five years of teaching Psychology and Communication Skills at the University of Porto, I am now teaching as an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of St. Joseph, Macau. I am handling modules related to childhood and clinical psychology. My other main interest is the theme of disability and inclusion, and I am a co-founder of the “IN-Associação para a Inclusão ao Longo da Vida” (Association for Lifelong Inclusion).ORCID link - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3969-763X; SCOPUS AUTHOR IDENTIFIER: 57195735171.

Francisco Botelho

Associate Professor | Head of the Department of Social Work

Born and raised in Macau, Dr. Francisco Botelho started his academic career at the University of Saint Joseph (USJ) in 2005, and is currently the Head of the Department of Social Work at USJ. He holds a PhD in Physiology from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong (HKU), and a M.Sc in Neuroscience from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. Dr. Francisco Botelho received the Best Young Investigator Award for 3 consecutive years (2012-2014) in international symposiums for his work in brain plasticity and GABAergic transmission, and was appointed as Honorary Assistant Professor at HKU in 2014. Currently, his attention focuses on the implementation of the biopsychosocial model in the healthcare system of Macau and the Greater Bay Area, in order to understand biological and psychosocial components of various disorders such as autism and devise effective treatments and therapies.    He is Honorary Advisor of the Macau Society of Registered Psychotherapists, and member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Applied Psychology. 

Leona Ng

Senior Lecturer | Programme Coordinator for the Department of Social Work

Jayson Lou

Assistant Professor

Dr. Jayson Lou Chi Kin(BSW,MSW,MBA,PhD.Edu)Dr. Lou Chi-kin completed his PhD in Education at the City University of Macau, with a research topic on Emergin adulthood and maturity development. After graduation, he continued to conduct research in different fields in the direction of adolescent and adult career and talent development. He is currently Programme Coordinator of Master of Social Work of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of St. Joseph. He has also 18 years of frontline social work experience.Since 2005, after graduating from the advanced degree program in social work at Macau Polytechnic University (then Macau Polytechnic Institute), he started his social workers' career in the field include community, youth, on-campus social work services and adults. Career development and other services, he also carried out different services during his work, such as micro-film creation, experiential learning, etc., which were relatively new social work intervention methods at the time, and won the award for the most creative social worker in 2010.Dr. Lou holds two master's degrees at the same time. After completing the supplementary course for the bachelor's degree in social work in 2008, he completed the Master's Degree of Business Administration at the University of Saint Joseph in 2010, with the research topic of social responsibility, and completed The Master of Advanced Social Work at the University of Melbourne in 2024., that he further hopes to introduce knowledge and technology from countries with more advanced social services for the development of social work in Macao.Dr. Lou is currently a member of the Professional Committee of Social Workers of the Macau Special Administrative Region, responsible for the recognition and registration of social work academic qualifications in Macau. He is also a director of the Professional Committee of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Education Collaborative Development of the Guangdong Provincial Education Society and a researcher on responsible management education in China. He is an expert member of the institute committee and the project leader of the Macau Center of the China Institute of Responsible Management Education. He is also the executive director of the Macau Doctoral Think Tank.

Helen Liu

Assistant Professor

Prof. Helen Liu is an assistant professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Faculty of Health Sciences in Macau (FHS). She is currently the Research Coordinator for the FHS and the programme leader of the Prison Outreach Programme. She received her MSW from Rutgers University School of Social Work and her Ph.D. from Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. She is a researcher-practitioner in social work and an associate affiliate of China Center for Social Policy Columbia University School of Social Work in New York City. She serves as an Academic Consultant in the committee of Family Education Group of the Macao Catholic Family Advisory Council.Her work has been supported by the Education and Youth Development Bureau, Social Welfare Bureau, and Macao Foundation. Her research interest is primarily in the area of promoting children and youth health and well-being, with fostering family resilience and developmental outcomes in children and adolescents. She served as Principal Investigator (P.I.) on grants funded of the children, youth, and families. She was a P.I. on the the Needs of Different Stages of Marriage and Family Life Course in Macao, which was to explore the developmental tasks, adjustments to the different stages in their family life cycle so as to identify the social services in the marriage and family sector which may help in the transition from one stage to the other. Since 2022, Prof. Helen has studied the cyberbullying among Youth in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. She was a P.I. on the research project entitled “Youth cyberbullying: Understanding contextual paths to prevention and resilience”, exploring cyberbullying processes in youths, which mainly goes into psychological health and cyberbullying. She is currently a P.I. on the research project entitled” Digital Use Divide, Parenting Strategy, and Cyberbullying” to understand parents’ familiarity with the internet using digital technology affect children’s well-being and to examine how digital technology integrate into family life in meaningful ways and promote parental mediation and parenting strategy.

Stella O

Senior Lecturer

Ms. Stella O is a registered social worker in Macau with nearly fifteen years of distinguished experience in the social service sector. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from Hong Kong Baptist University and currently serves as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Saint Joseph. Previously, she contributed her expertise as a lecturer at the City University of Macau and as internship supervisor at Macau Polytechnic University. Her professional journey includes roles as a social worker and unit supervisor in substance addiction services, where she skillfully integrates Narrative, Empowerment, and Strengths-based approaches in her frontline interventions.

Winnie Shum

Associate Professor (Research Track)

PhD，Associate ProfessorAcademy for Cellular Nutrition and HealthFaculty of Health Sciences& Institute of Science & Environment Research Interests:Epithelial Cell Biology in Exocrine and Reproductive SystemsSperm Maturation & Reproductive Biomedicine & Offspring HealthMicroenvironmental Signals in Epithelial Tissues and HealthFunctional Mechanism of Eatable-Herbal Medicinal Nutrients on Epithelial CellsTranslational Science of Single-Cell Elementomics & Cellular Nutrition Brief Biography：Dr. Shum graduated from the Department of Chemistry of Hong Kong Baptist University with first-class honor. Her PhD was from Pharmacology Dept at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She went to Pharmacology Physiology Dept of Strathclyde Uni (UK) for a visiting-postdoctoral training, followed by a postdoc-training in Professor Patrick Wong’s lab at Physiology Dept of CUHK. Later, she was delighted to join the lab of Professor Sylvie Breton at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) affiliated to Harvard Medical School (HMS). During the postdoc-training at MGH, Shum received the Medical Discovery Award and the Martin Award offered from MGH-ECOR-HMS. Where she was promoted to Instructor. She returned to China and joined the School of Life Sciences and Technology of ShanghaiTech University as an independent principal investigator and a doctoral supervisor. She also received the Shanghai Dawn Scholar Award and was selected as a distinguished researcher during the joint-effort project of the Center for Excellence in Molecular and Cell Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She later joined USJ. For over 20-years, Dr Shum is devoted herself to the basic scientific research. She focuses on exploring the cellular and molecular mechanisms as well as the clinical translational implications of epithelial cellular function, paternal factors and cellular nutrition in regulating epididymal function and sperm maturation for reproductive health and the health of offspring.Major Academic Achievements:·   Elucidation of functional mechanisms of epithelial cellular function in health and disease, expecially epididymal homeodynamic microenvironmental signaling regulation of sperm maturation for male fertility and reproductive health, including models of fluid transport, luminal acidification, calcium-redox interactions for luminal clearance, and epithelial junctional-promoted lipid homeodynamics.·   Discovered the elementomic signatures of sperm cells, leading to translational work of cell-elementomics as a non-invasive in-vitro-diagnostics (IVD) tool to monitor the functional quality of single cells and access health conditions such as male fertility.·   Published 26 SCI-articles and one international patent. Among them, Shum contributed either the first author or the last corresponding author of 16 publications, including Cell, PLoS Genetics and Metallomics, etc. The results have been featured by Science Signaling and Science magazines, and 6 articles have been included in the textbooks of the field.Grants:2021.01 – 2024.12       National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) | Role: PI2019.01 – 2022.12       National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) | Role: PI2019.07 – 2021.08       Science & Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (STCSM) | PI2017.09 – 2020.08       Science & Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (STCSM) | Role: Co-PI2017   Shanghai CAS Open Grant (w/academician Lily YL Zhang) | Role PI2015.01 – 2018.12       National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) | Role PI2014.01 – 2016.12       Shanghai Municipal of Education Committee | Role PI2009   HMS-MGH ECOR Martin Research Prize | Role: 1st Co-awardee.2008-2009 HMS-MGH ECOR Postdoc Medical Discovery Award | | Role: PI.Scholar Profiles:ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7575-6097ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Winnie-Shum-2Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QBWwN30AAAAJ&hlLoop: https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/691356/overview

Dominique Tyl

Emeritus Professor