Thomas Boll is Assistant Professor in Psychology and deputy programme director of the Master of Gerontology. He has received his doctoral degree in Psychology at the University of Trier (Germany) and joined the University of Luxembourg in 2006. His main research interest are in the fields of life-span developmental psychology and geropsychology. He is particularly interested in the emotional quality of adult child-parent relationships, emotional ambivalence in care giving and care receipt, and the reasons for the use and non-use of assistive technologies by older people. Cultural psychological perspectives increasingly supplement emotion and action theoretical approaches to these topics.

Within the "Department of Cognitive and Behavioural Sciences" Dr. Boll is a member of the "Institute on Lifespan Development, Family and Culture" (Head: Prof. Anna Kornadt). In 2018, he has edited together with Dieter Ferring and Jaan Valsiner the book “Cultures of Care in Ageing” with contributions from a multidisciplinary cast of internationally renowned authors. The chapters refer to the relations between persons dependent on care and the caregivers, impacts of caregiving on the family and the larger context, as well as the sociocultural and political aspects of formal and informal care. It provides a first substantive integration of knowledge from geropsychology, other gerosciences, and cultural psychologies.
Dr. Boll is a member of the editorial board of GeroPsych: The Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry and of the Scientific Board of Human Arenas: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Psychology, Culture, and Meaning.

Dr. Boll teaches in five study programs at the University of Luxembourg: The Bachelor of Science in Psychology, the Master of Psychology: Track Evaluation and Assessment, the Master of Gérontology, the Master of Management and Coaching, and the Bachelor en Sciences Sociales et Éducatives en cours d'emploi. The courses cover developmental psychology of adulthood, geropsychology, and emotional intelligence as well as data collection, data-analysis, and team teaching. Together with Isabelle Albert, Elke Murdock, Jaan Valsiner he co-organizes the Annual Summer School on Cultural Psychology which is integrated into the Doctoral School in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg.

Last updated on: Monday, 02 March 2020