Personal data

Title:                Professor, DMSc, PhD

Position:         Professor, Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University

                         Head of PN Research Lab, Psychology & Neuroscience, Placebo & Nocebo

Born:               September 4, 1974

Status:             Married. Three children

E-mail:            lenevase@psy.au.dk

Academic Degrees

23.03.2018    DMSc ‘Can insights from placebo and nocebo mechanism studies improve the Randomized Controlled Trial?’, AU HE

09.06.2006   PhD ‘Empirical investigations of factors which may contribute to placebo analgesia’, Psychology, AU BSS

14.04.2002    MSc, Psychology, AU BSS

Employment

01.12.2018     Professor, AU BSS

01.08.2012    Professor MSO, AU BSS

01.01.2010    Associate professor, AU BSS

01.06.2006   Assistant professor, AU BSS

Other academic qualifications

Other scientific activities (selected)

2020              Reviewer of Center grants for the German Research Council

2018-             Scientific Program Committee, World Congress on Pain

Conferences

Five keynote or opening speeches, chaired more than 15 symposiums, and given more than 65 talks at international conferences and meetings including the World Congress for the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Publications

More than 100 peer-reviewed international publications in high-impact journals including the Lancet (JIF:59.10).
H-index is 28/36 and total citations almost 3,171/4,692 (Scopus/Google Scholar). Sixty percent of publications are published in top ten journals, and field-weighted citation indicates a high impact on the field.

Academical Honors (selected)

2021:                Shortlisted for the Danish National Elite Researcher Prize

2015:                Keynote speaker at the 5th international Congress on Neuropathic Pain “Placebo, Nocebo and Neuropathic pain”

2010:                The Faculty of Social Science’s “Young researcher award”, Aarhus University

Project management (selected)

2021-2026      Effect of Patient Education and duloxetine, alone or in combination, Trygfonden.

2019-2024      Animal Contact, Trygfonden.

2017-                Head of the international network PREDICT (Placebo REsponses Determined In Clinical Trials), which joins world-leading placebo
                          researchers, EFPIAS (The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associates)
                          and regulatory agencies to improve clinical trial methodology.

2009-2015      Head of the workpackage ‘placebo effects’, EuroPAIN, IMI

2009-2015      Head of the workpackage ‘pain catastrophizing’, MindLab, The investment Capital of University Research (UNIK)

Scientific focus

• Adequate test of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments
• Expectations and control conditions
• Psycho-neuro-biological mechanisms underlying central nervous system diseases

International collaboration

More than seven long visits to four prestigious international institutions totalling almost 5 years abroad. LV currently collaborates with more than 20 international and 20 national leading centers. During the last five years more than 15 international researchers has visited her laboratory.

Selected exchange

• 2018: Visiting professor University of California Los Angeles, UCLS, USA
• 2015-2018: Visiting professor, Harvard Medical School, USA

Selected collaboration

• Professor Ted J. Kaptchuk, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

(Non-pharmacological treatments, 5 publications, exchange of 2 PhD students)

• Professor Fabrizio Benedetti, University of Turin, Italy

(Expectation and pharmacological treatments, 12 publications, co-supervision of 3 PhD students and 2 postdocs)

• Professor Andrew S. Rice, Imperial College London, UK

(Pain processing, 5 publications, co-supervision of 2 PhD students and 1 postdoc)

• Professor Andrew Geers, The University of Toledo, USA

(Expectations and pain processing, 8 publications, co-supervision of 2 PhD students)

Supervision of students

Supervised 25 PhD students (10 as primary supervisor), 7 postdocs (2 as primary supervisor), and 15 visiting researchers. Several have won international awards such as a Fullbright Scholarship, The Pain Citations Prize and the Umberto Veronesi Prize.