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Monika Donker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education & Pedagogy at Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the emotional, behavioral, and physiological dynamics that unfold in everyday interactions between teachers and students, as well as parents and adolescents. She investigates how moment-to-moment interactions shape individuals' emotions and autonomy using a combination of self-reports, behavioral observation, and psychophysiological measures. Monika completed her PhD under the supervision of Professors Tamara van Gog and Tim Mainhard, studying how physiological indicators and systematic coding of teacher-student interactions can inform our understanding of teachers' emotional processes and their influence on classroom dynamics and student outcomes. She subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the InTransition project with Professor Susan Branje, exploring how family relationships impact adolescents' emotional functioning and adjustment during challenging periods such as school transitions and the COVID-19 pandemic. In her teaching, Monika contributes to courses in the Bachelor Pedagogical Sciences, (pre-)Master Orthopedagogics, and Research Master Educational Sciences: Learning Interaction (EdSci). She teaches courses on academic writing and communication skills and supervises Bachelor’s and Master’s theses. Additionally, she is actively involved in educational development as a test ambassador and developer of the F-ACT dashboard for academic writing competencies.
Department of Psychology