Fernando Estévez López

FER (Motril -Granada-, 1987) did his BSc on Sport Sciences at University of Granada (2010). In 2015, he was awarded with a PhD studentship from the Spanish Government. His predoctoral research focused on identifying factors that are associated with symptoms of anxiety, depression and somatic (such as pain and fatigue) in adults with chronic diseases. In particular, he focused on factors that provide resilience and adaptation such as physical activity and positive affect.

Moreover, he conducted randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews and meta-analysis in order to determine the effects of physical exercise on anxiety, depression and somatic symptoms. In 2018, he was awarded with a PhD in Psychology at Utrecht University (The Netherlands).

Since 2019, Fer is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie (COFUND) postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology at Erasmus MC University Medical Center (Rotterdam, The Netherlands). In this hospital, he studies the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and brain development using structural MRI in children and adolescents. Thanks to be awarded with a Short-term Visiting Fellowship by the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation, Fer is visiting Harvard University (USA) for one year. He aims at gaining advanced skills in resting-state functional MRI, including functional dynamic connectivity, which is a novel and promising technique in the context of psychiatric symptoms in children and adolescents.