PsyFI: Future and Innovation in Psychology conference

Gustav Nilsonne

MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Karolinska Institutet

Gustav Nilsonne is Associate Professor of neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet, and affiliated also the department of psychology at Stockholm University and to the Metrics center at Stanford University. Gustav is nowadays mainly active in metascience, investigating how to improve the transparency and reproducibility of research in psychology and medicine. He also works in basic research in neuroscience and psychology (e.g. sleep and diurnal rhythms) as well as translational research (e.g. biomarkers in psychiatry).

Rebecca Stower

Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychology and Social Robotics, KTH

Rebecca Stower is a postdoctoral researcher at the Division of Robotics, Perception, and Learning at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She first completed her undergraduate studies in psychology, before transitioning into a PhD in human-robot interaction (HRI). Her research focuses on what happens when robots fail and how this influences factors such as trust and risk-taking. She uses psychological theories and measurement to inform the design, development, and testing of various robots, including humanoid social robots, drones, and robot arms. More generally she is passionate about open science and psychological measurement within HRI.

Robert Johansson

Associate Professor, Stockholm University

Robert Johansson is associate professor at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, specializing in Machine Psychology—a field that integrates learning psychology principles with adaptive AI systems to advance Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). His work focuses on combining operant conditioning paradigms with the Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System (NARS) to develop AI capable of human-like cognitive flexibility and adaptability. Johansson's interdisciplinary approach bridges psychology and AI, contributing to the development of more generalizable and context-sensitive cognitive models.

Stefan Spulber

Chief Liaison Officer, NorthernLight Diagnostics AB

Stefan Spulber is a Medical doctor by education, researcher, and passion-driven entrepreneur. He believes everything can be measured and should be measured, and dedicated a significant amount of time to making sense of human behaviour through objective measurements. Actigraphy, a cost-effective and minimally invasive technology to monitor activity, is an outstanding source of insight into patterns of activity - from sleep quality to in-depth understanding of organization of daytime activity. Their research has focused on finding alteration in patterns of activity in mental illness and generating actionable information. The first target was depression, and the research performed at the Department for Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet lead to a spinoff company (NorthernLight Diagnostics) to manufacture and commercialize AI-based clinical decision support systems for mental healthcare.

Erik Forsell

Lic. Psychologist, PhD, Karolinska Institutet

Erik Forsell is a clinical psychologist, postdoctoral researcher and Director of Research and Development at the Internet Psychiatry Clinic in Stockholm (internetpsykiatri.se). His overarching research focus is implementing, delivering and optimizing internet interventions within healthcare systems in order to reach as many in need as possible and provide treatments that are as effective and efficient as they can be. One specific focus of his research is adaptive treatment strategies in Internet delivered Cognitive Behavior Therapy, where patients are monitored during the early stages of treatment and those at risk of not benefitting from treatment get targeted with extra support and resources. A proof-of-concept RCT was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2019 and a larger machine learning-assisted RCT has just concluded.

Lance M McCracken

Professor of Clinical Psychology, Uppsala University

Lance M McCracken is Professor and Head of Division in Clinical Psychology, Psychology Department, Uppsala University, Sweden. He trained in the US as a Clinical Psychologist and adopted a specialty interest in Behavioral Medicine. After his post doc in Baltimore, it took up posts in Chicago, Bath (England), London, and then landed in Sweden in 2018. His early research focused on what is now called the fear-avoidance model in chronic pain but it soon shifted to a focus on psychological flexibility (although it was not called that at the time), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and approaches to psychological treatment development based on Contextual Behavioral Science.