Catarina M. Santos

Teacher, 11 – 21 August 2022

Catarina Marques dos Santos is an assistant professor in Organizational Behavior at Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. She received her PhD from the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University and ISCTE-IUL (Portugal). Before that, Catarina studied Social and Organizational Psychology at  ISCTE-IUL and Leiden University.

Catarina’s expertise lies in the fields of organizational behavior and psychology, namely on team dynamics, cognition, adaptation, leadership, and the temporal aspects of teamwork. Her research has been published in top scientific journals, such as The Leadership Quarterly, Group & Organization Management, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

Drawing on the above expertise, Catarina has taught and coordinated a variety of courses at the bachelor, master, and MBA levels, on organizational behavior, crisis management in organizations, conflict management, and team dynamics. In addition, she has supervised theses and projects at all levels (BSc, MSc, PhD, and MBA).

In 2019, Catarina won a prestigious international grant in a competitive application process. This grant allows her to focus her research on a contemporary topic in the organizational behavior field, namely the development of team mental models in different types of teams. The development of team mental models is crucial in teams operating in a variety of industries as it allows teams to increase coordination, cooperation, learning, and achieve better performance.