Graduated in Psychology in 1988 and awarded a PhD in Psychology in 1992 by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), she served as Associate Professor in the University’s Unit of Psychobiology from 1998 to 2021, when she was promoted to Full Professor. She is a researcher at the Institute of Neurosciences (INc) at UAB and teaches in its Master’s and Doctoral programmes. She has completed several research stays at leading international institutions, including Wake Forest University, North Carolina (1996–1997), the University of California, San Francisco (2000), the University of Colorado Boulder (2010), and the University of British Columbia, Canada (2013).
She has authored or co-authored more than 110 publications in international journals and has supervised 13 doctoral theses, with a further 6 currently in progress. She received the ICREA Academia Award (Government of Catalonia) in the Behavioural Sciences category for the period 2015–2019, and served as Deputy Director of the INc from 2010 to 2016. She was a member of the Addictive Disorders Network (Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 2003–2017) and is currently a member of CIBERSAM (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), the TECSAM Network (Government of Catalonia), the Spanish Stress Research Network (Ministry of Science and Innovation), and the INc-UAB/Taulí Mixed Translational Neuroscience Unit. She has participated in numerous international, national, and regional research projects, both as principal investigator and as a team member. She currently coordinates the consolidated Generalitat de Catalunya research group “Neurobiology of Stress and Vulnerability to Psychopathology” and is principal investigator of three funded projects supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Fundació La Marató de TV3, and Fundación Alicia Koplowitz. She has also co-organised several scientific conferences, notably the FENS Congress (2012, Public Awareness Committee) and a B-Debate meeting organised by Biocat and Fundació Obra Social La Caixa (2016). In 2019, she was included in the “Top 100 Women Leaders in Spain” ranking in the Academia category, awarded by Women and Cía.
In addition to her teaching and research activities, she has been actively involved in knowledge transfer and public engagement, as well as in initiatives promoting gender equality and mental health advocacy. Much of her career has focused on the neurobiology of stress in preclinical models, with particular emphasis on the role of early-life experiences in vulnerability and resilience, as well as on individual differences. More recently, her research has centred on the identification of biomarkers associated with vulnerability to developmental trajectories of externalising behaviour in boys and girls, including stress and fear responses.
Contact:
roser.nadal@uab.cat
School of Psychology (Psychobiology Unit) – Room b5-033
Neurosciences Institute – Room m1-123
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08193, Spain
ORCID