For the first time, a researcher in the field of CTC has achieved the position of career researcher. Mónica Aresta, a researcher at DigiMedia – Digital Media and Interaction Research Center at the University of Aveiro (UA), hopes to “open the way for others who aspire and work every day to have greater security and professional stability”.
This is the first time that DigiMedia has had a career researcher in the area of Communication Sciences and Technologies on its staff. Mónica Aresta stresses that “this position is a first milestone, a moment of special importance for me as a researcher and for all those who work every day – on projects, teaching, publishing and contributing to the advancement of science – so that one day this will be the reality of research in Portugal”.
With a career path articulated between the business and academic contexts, in the last five years her research work has focused mainly on the theme of environmental awareness and sensitization and on how technology, when approached from the perspective of its non-neutral role, can contribute to developing a sense of responsibility regarding the importance of adopting more sustainable behaviors. This theme, which is part of the concerns of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda, is according to the researcher “just one of the fields in which Communication Sciences and Technologies – in their multiplicity of contexts of action – can make a decisive contribution to building dynamic, interactive and immersive experiences that empower individuals to understand the complexities of social and environmental issues and inspire them to become an active part of building a more responsible and sustainable future.”
DigiMedia is an interdisciplinary research unit focused on innovation in the design of new interaction approaches for human-centered digital media applications, rated very good by FCT. With 33 active projects in 2023, with sources of (inter)national public funding and industrial funding, it is a Research Unit with strong links to industry and a strong commitment to knowledge transfer. This position of Career Researcher is therefore, according to the researcher, “the fruit of the work of everyone who has worked since the beginning to recognize this area, often seen as a link between computer sciences and communication sciences, and its affirmation as an active and concrete space for building knowledge. This recognition makes us very proud and once again affirms the University of Aveiro as a leading institution.”