The JOUREDIS project constitutes an initiative from people who are actively involved in the fields of communication and public health.

Dr Eleni A. Kyza is Associate Professor in Information Society at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies at the Cyprus University of Technology, where she leads the Media, Cognition, and Learning Research Group. She has a Ph.D. from the Learning Sciences program at Northwestern University, with a specialization in Cognitive Science, a master’s degree in Technology in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a B.Sc. in Education, summa cum laude, with a concentration in Educational Media and Technology from Boston University, and a Teacher’s Diploma from the Pedagogical Academy of Cyprus. Her bachelor’s and master’s studies were funded by the Cyprus America Scholarship Program (CASP) administered through the Fulbright Commission. Her research investigates technology-enhanced learning environments to support motivated, meaningful, and reflective practices.  As part of the Co-Inform research project, funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020, she and her colleagues examined digital literacy to address online misinformation. Dr Kyza is Editor-in-Chief of the Instructional Science  journal, President of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI)  (2021-2023), and an Inaugural Fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS). She is a member of the European Commission Expert Group on Tackling Disinformation and Promoting Digital Literacy through Education and Training.

Christiana Varda is the Founder of Media What, a non-profit organization focused on promoting media literacy through participatory media production activities. She is also a PhD student and Research Associate at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies at the Cyprus University of Technology, and her research focuses on emotions, misinformation, informal learning and social media. She has collaborated with Dr Kyza on the research project Co-Inform, and had an active role in the evaluation of digital tools against misinformation. Her research focuses on understanding the role that emotions play during information evaluation on social media. Ms. Varda holds a Bachelor’s in Journalism and a Bachelor’s in English from the Pennsylvania State University, where she graduated as a Schreyer’s Honors Scholar. She also holds a Master’s degree in Interactive Multimedia from the Cyprus University of Technology. Her bachelor’s studies were funded by the Cyprus America Scholarship Program (CASP) administered through the Fulbright Commission.

Dr Costas Christophi is an Associate Professor at the Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health (CII) at the Cyprus University of Technology and holds an appointment as Adjunct Associate Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  He has conducted research on several health-related topics, such as obesity and diabetes, and smoking and health. Working with collaborators from Harvard University and from the Cyprus Ministry of Defense, his group initiated an epidemiological investigation of the health of young Cypriot males who were serving in the Cypriot armed forces. Professor Christophi’s research group has also been involved in several studies of tobacco smoking habits and determinants in Cyprus. Most recently, in a collaboration involving CII, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait, Prof. Christophi’s group is contributing to the development and analysis of data from a large pregnancy-birth cohort study intended to examine the effect of in utero and early life environmental exposures to the subsequent development of chronic diseases such as diabetes. His bachelor’s studies were funded by the Cyprus America Scholarship Program (CASP) administered through the Fulbright Commission.