User:Lawrence Kalogreades

Lawrence Kalogreades joined CNTI/FWC in 2009 after completing his M.Sc in Clinical and Abnormal Psychology. He immediately assumed the duties of lead coordinator of the Cyprus Internet Helpline which is a division of the Cyberethics project.

As the lead coordinator, he led the design of the Helpline service, its website, trained and hired its first telephone operators, and led a vigorous public speaking program, ranging from radio and television appearances to talks and presentations at schools and national symposia, in order to achieve the Helpline's out-reach goals. As a result of the success of the Cyprus Safer Internet Helpline he was invited to the "Promotion of Mental Health and Well-being of Children and Young People: Making it happen” conference in 2009, which was organised by the European Commission and the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs under the auspices of the Swedish Presidency. The Cyprus Safer Internet Helpline was the only European Helpline represented at the conference, with the exception of the local Swedish Helpline, and was selected on the basis of its exceptional progress.

Due to his interest in psychology and the on-going discussion of the possible effects of video-games on their users, Lawrence led an effort in collaboration with Antonis Loizou and Yiannis Laouris to kick-start a unit which would aim to study how violent video-games may affect the physiological and mental states of the individuals playing. This resulted in the creation of the Video-Game Psychophysiology Laboratory, which utilized the NeXus-10 biofeedback platford in order to record biophysical markers of stress, which, when combined with approach and inhibition personality inventories based on the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory of personality, could help elucidate if experienced gamers showed different stress reactions when compared to non-gamers. The results of these initial trials are currently being analyzed.

Lawrence also coordinated the 2nd International Structured Dialogic Design Facilitator Training Program, which included as trainers Prof. Aleco Christakis, the founder of Global Agoras and father of the science of Dialogic Design, Dr. Yiannis Laouris, Prof. Tom Flanagan, Prof. Ken Bausch, and Marios Michaelides.

He was also part of the team which led the series of SDDPs entitled "Learning and Development Needs for Cypriot Local Authorities". The project involved the implementation of six SDDPs across Cyprus with the aim of diagnosing the educational and training needs of the local authorities with the aim of upgrading the operation of local governance in Cyprus.

Besides his main projects, Lawrence also represented CNTI/FWC Lawrence has since completed a M.Sc in Neuroscience in September 2012 at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and is currently pursuing a career in the field of biomedical science.