Overview

Maria is a Research Fellow working for the SPOCC project- SPOtting Cancer among Comorbidities (NIHR)- WP2: " Help us to spot cancer early: an interview study to explore your experiences".

Maria has a PhD in Sociology of Health and Illness and she is mainly interested in the process of diagnosis and how social representations of gender, age and mental health are responsible for misdiagnosis and or late diagnosis of various conditions. She has a strong background in qualitative research and analysis, and she has an in-depth understanding of social processes and their impact on individuals’ discourses, lives and daily practices. In her PhD thesis she explored the experience of living with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease and she is currently working in the field of cancer diagnosis for people with co/multimorbidities in primary care (SPOCC project).

She is primarily interested in research areas related to social processes such as psychologisation and its impact on medicine, the process of diagnosis under a sociological and anthropological perspective and qualitative -heatlh- research. Some of her publications are: 

Monography

Valasaki, M. (2022). Sociological approaches on a neurodegenerative disease: the case of young onset Parkinson’s disease and the experience of multiplicity. Athens: Pedio (in Greek)

Papers in peer reviewed journals

Valasaki, M. (2020) The mask during the modern pandemic: sociological approaches and issues of interpretation. The greek review of social research, [S.l.], p. 149-159, ISSN 2241-8512. Available at:

Valasaki, M. (2021). The experience of living with Deep Brain Stimulation: patients’ narratives with Young Onset Parkinson’s disease. Journal of Posthuman Studies, 5(1): 53-68. doi: 10.5325/jpoststud.5.1.0053

Valasaki, M. (2022). Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease: biographical disruption as a repetitive process. Sociol Health Illn, 44(4-5):798-814. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13451

Valasaki, M. (2023). Constructing the detecting stage: Social processes and the diagnostic journey of early onset Parkinson's disease. Sociol Health Illn. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13622. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36762824.

Qualifications

• BSc Political Science and Public Administration (2012)
• MSc Political Psychology (2013)
• PhD Sociology of Health and Illness (2020)

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