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Marina Merkaš, PhD, Associate Professor
Leader of the D.E.C.I.D.E. project and the research group

Marina Merkaš, PhD, associate professor (born 1982), employed at the University Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia since 2014. She obtained PhD (2012) on the topic of the role of the family in the development of adolescent social competence at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (field of social sciences, branch of psychology, developmental psychology). Her areas of interest, scientific work, and research work lie in developmental psychology, more specifically the individual and contextual determinants of child development, especially the effects of parenting and family dynamics on the development of children and adolescents, and the effects of digital technology on children’s development.

She has worked at the Sixteenth Gymnasium in Zagreb, the Clinic for Psychiatry at the Clinical Hospital Center in Rijeka, and the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar. She attended six summer and methodological schools and workshops, received eight scholarships for additional education, and completed part of her dissertation at Ghent University, Belgium. She has completed the first level of cognitive-behavioral therapy and holds a basic psychological license to practice from the Croatian Psychological Chamber.

To date, she has participated in the implementation of 17 projects funded from various sources (including UNICEF, the Ministry of Science and Education, the Croatian Science Foundation, the Agency for Electronic Media, the Society for Research on Adolescence, and European Union Funds), with two of these projects in a leading role. She has published, independently or co-authored, over 30 papers in journals, conference proceedings, and books and has contributed to two monographs and two scientific research reports. She was the editor of a book of abstracts from a conference, has presented more than 60 papers at domestic and international conferences, and has led and participated in several symposia and round tables at conferences.

Among her significant roles, she has been the president of the Program Committee for the 1st International Scientific and Professional Conference of the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Croatia and a member of the Senate of the Catholic University of Croatia. She was also a mentor within the SRA COVID-19 Response Team and the Society for Research on Adolescence. She has reviewed papers for over 20 domestic and international journals, is a member of the editorial board of two journals, and is a member of several professional associations, including prestigious international associations, such as the European Association for Research on Adolescence (EARA), the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA), and the European Association for Developmental Psychology (EADP). Since 2007, she has been involved in teaching developmental psychology and mentoring, evaluating, and defending master’s, specialist, and doctoral theses at the University of Zagreb, the University of Rijeka, and the University of Ljubljana. She has given three invited lectures and participated in numerous activities aimed at popularizing knowledge in her field.

Recently, she served as an invited guest editor for the special issue of the journal Psychological Topics titled “Children, Adolescents, and Media Use: Recent Trends and Progress”. She conducted a professional analysis of the situation of children and youth in the digital environment in the Republic of Croatia for the period 2021–2023 for the Central State Office for Demography and Youth as an informed guideline for developing a national plan for children and youth in the digital environment in Croatia. She gave an invited presentation on the results of the D.E.C.I.D.E. project at the preconference “SRA Pre-Conference on Global Perspectives on Developmental Science to Address Youth Resilience and Well-Being in the Face of Sociocultural and Ecological Challenges” in Chicago, IL. Currently, she leads the university research team in the project “Application of AI-based digital technologies in education: BrAIn” (2023-2029) and participates in the international project “Smartphone Use, Sleep, and Mood: A Cross-Cultural Study on the Role of Emotion Regulation” (2024-2026), funded by the European Association for Developmental Psychology.