Executive team

Chair Nuria Simelio - Vice chair Clara Sarmento - Vice chair Sinikka Torkkola

Chair Núria Simelio Solà

Dr. Núria Simelio Solà is a Doctor of Journalism and Communication Sciences and a graduate in History from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). She has a postgraduate degree in Sociology and Design Communication from ESDI-Ramon Llull University and a Master’s degree in Communication and Journalism from UAB.

She has been Professor of the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences at UAB since 2003, where she teaches undergraduate and doctorate classes and various postgraduate courses. She has also been a professor at Ramon Llull University. Currently, she is the Director of Women and Mass Culture research group and the Vice-Coordinator of Doctorate studies in the Journalism and Communication Sciences Department at UAB. In addition, she is a Member of the Advisory Council of the Monitoring Centre for Equality and the research group Laboratorio de Comunicación Pública (Public Communication Laboratory) at UAB.

Among the extensive number of research projects carried out by Dr. Simelio Solà is the creation of a city portal prototype to manage local awareness networks for citizen participation, funded by the Administración Abierta de Cataluña (Open Administration of Catalonia). In addition, she has studied women as active citizens using the news, funded by the Instituto de la Mujer del Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales (Women’s Institute of the Ministry of Social Affaires [hereafter the Women’s Institute]) and the Institut Català de les Dones de la Generalitat de Cataluña (Catalonian Women’s Institute of the Catalonian Government). The central theme of her doctoral thesis is the portrayal of women and men in the general press, which was funded by the Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales (Ministry of Social Affairs) and Colegio de Periodistas de Cataluña (Catalonian Journalists Association). She has also carried out projects in the areas of communication, history and tourism for the management and recovery of history and cultural heritage.

Vice chair Clara Sarmento

Clara Sarmento, PhD in Portuguese Culture, develops her research on intercultural representations of gender, as the founder and coordinator of the Centre for Intercultural Studies of the Polytechnic Institute of Oporto, where she is a Tenured Professor and the Director of the Master’s Programme in Specialized Translation. Former Visiting Scholar at Brown University, USA.

Recipient of the American Club of Lisbon Award for Academic Merit, and of the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra Award for Young Social Scientists.

Author and editor, among others, of the books: Women in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Theatre of Shadows;As Palavras, a Página e o Livro: A Construção Literária na Obra de Paul Auster; Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the 21st Century?; Condição Feminina no Império Colonial Português; Cultura Popular Portuguesa: Práticas, Discursos e Representações; From Here to Diversity: Globalization and Intercultural Dialogues; Diálogos Interculturais: Os Novos Rumos da Viagem.

Vice chair Sinikka Torkkola

Sinikka Torkkola, PhD, is a journalism researcher who has worked at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Tampere since 1997. She is the Network’s representative on the board of ECREA.

In her dissertation, she focused on health communication and health journalism, Sick Story. Research on the theory of health journalism and the news paper hospital, 2008 (in Finnish). An English abstract is available at her homepage.

Today, she works on the research project, Equality, journalism and career development among Finnish women journalists. The research examines women managers' career development in media houses and shows the overt and covert obstacles to women's career advancement. The main results of the project are published in the interim report Subscribing to a woman editor-in-chief? Female and male.editors' views on the impact of gender on careers. The report is available on the internet, please see her homepage.