169 about the author ABOUT THE AUTHOR Valentina, born in Bogotá, Colombia, relocated to Italy at a young age. In her school years, she already displayed a profound interest in how crises can act as catalysts for evolution and growth. She even wrote a small thesis on this topic for her high school graduation. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Milan-Bicocca, she moved to Tuscany to pursue a Master’s in Philosophy of Cognition and Emotion at the University of Siena. During this time, she spent six months as an Erasmus student at the Philosophy department of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences (IFK) in Osnabrück, Germany. During a bike tour from New York to Minneapolis, Valentina realised the deep connection between environmental problems and human behaviour. She asked herself to what extent Psychology, as the science of human behaviour, was recognized as a relevant discipline to address the contemporary environmental crisis. This led her to the Environmental Psychology Master’s program at the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands. While still pursuing her master’s degree, Valentina received a PhD offer in the Environmental Psychology department, focusing on the Psychology of Climate Change Adaptation. She was immediately drawn to understanding whether and how humans can not merely adapt, but also change and evolve due to the confrontation with contemporary global crises, such as climate change. This interest culminated in the development of Transilience, a novel construct which forms the core of her PhD dissertation. &
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