Alba Jasini is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leuven, Center for Social and Cultural Psychology. Her research interests centre on the role of culture and social context in shaping the meaning and experience of emotions. In her research, she aims to further our understanding of the emotional acculturation process – i.e., changes in people’s emotional patterns due to engagement in a new culture and contact with members of that culture. In her work, she seeks to map the micro- and macro- level factors that afford or contrain emotional acculturation in immigrant minorities. In addition, she investigates the conditions under which emotional acculturation becomes beneficial (or not) for minorities’ inclusion, wellbeing and their social adjustment. Her work shows that emotional acculturation is a long-term process of change, influenced by the intensity of minorities’ experiences in the majority culture as well as the characteristics of the social context where minorities live, work or study. To comprehend the nature of this process, together with Prof. Batja Mesquita, Prof. Jozefien De Leersnyder and other colleagues, she conducts research with minority youth and newcomers in Belgium. In her work, she employes a multitude of methods and statistical approaches such as multilevel, longitudinal, social networks and experience sampling designs.

Alba holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Leuven, an MSc in Psychology from the University of Amsterdam (major in Social Psychology) and a BA in Psychology from the University of Tirana (major in Clinical Psychology).