Carolina Överlien

Keywords

  • Gender based violence
  • intimate partner violence
  • children experiencing domestic violence and abuse
  • qualitative research methods
  • research ethics

Biography

Biography

Carolina Överlien has conducted research and served as a research leader for many years, focusing on topics related to intimate partner violence and domestic violence and abuse. Her research operates at the intersection of social work, psychology, and sociology, with a particular focus on violence exposed children and young people. She earned her PhD at the Department of Child Studies, Linköping University, in 2004, with a dissertation on sexual abuse and girls in youth detention homes. Since then, her research has primarily focused on children in women's shelters/crisis centers, youth intimate partner violence, and sexual violence. She has worked for many years at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS) in Oslo, where she led research concerning children and young people. She became a professor of social work at Stockholm University in 2019, where she also served as a lecturer until 2024. In February 2024, she accepted the position of professor of gender-related violence and health at the National Centre for Knowledge on Men and Violence (NCK), Uppsala University.

Research

Carolina Överlien leads NCK’s research group, consisting of all the PhD researchers at NCK. As responsible for the scientific activities, she participates in several research projects at NCK, including the Population Study on Violence, Health, and Life Outcomes, led by Associate Professor Marcus Lindskog. She also works on two research projects on technology-facilitated abuse, including a follow-up research project on support for young people through Snapchat. She also leads a research project at Stockholm University on sexual consent in young people's intimate relationships.

At the National Centre for Knowledge on Violence and Traumatic Stress (NKVTS) in Oslo, Överlien has recently completed a several year long project on sexual violence in young people's intimate relationships. In 2026, she will begin work on a new study on bereaved children, PI is Gertrud Hafstad, NKVTS. She also continues to work on two projects related to domestic violence shelters, including the so-called Global Domestic Violence Shelter Study.

Over the years, Carolina Överlien has served as the main supervisor and co-supervisor for a large number of doctoral students. She currently supervises Miriam Nathanson (NCK/UU), Tove Filén (NCK/UU), Clara Fahlstadius (SU), Anja Duun Skauge (UiO/NKVTS), and Linda Holen Moen (UiO/NKVTS).

Överlien is co-editor of the American journal Journal of Family Violence (JOFV), and co- editor of the Routledge book series Domestic Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence. She is one of the founders of the European Conference on Domestic Violence (ECDV), which took place in Barcelona, Spain, in 2025, and will be held in Dublin, Ireland, in 2027. Överlien has published several books, both as sole author and as editor, as well as a large number of scientific journal articles.

Carolina Överlien

Publications

Selection of publications

Recent publications

All publications

Articles in journal

Articles, review/survey

Books

Chapters in book

Collections (editor)

Reports

FOLLOW UPPSALA UNIVERSITY ON

Uppsala University on Facebook
Uppsala University on Instagram
Uppsala University on Youtube
Uppsala University on Linkedin