Ema San Payo holds a Master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology with a specialization in Systemic Approaches (Family, Community, and Forensic) from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Lisbon. During her Master’s, she completed an internship at a residential care home, where she worked with children, their birth and adoptive families, and the professional support team, using play-based therapeutic approaches. This hands-on experience allowed her thesis on adoption to be grounded in real-life practice, rather than purely theoretical. In 2023, she presented her research at the 9th International Congress of Clinical and Health Psychology on Children and Adolescents in Valencia.

In 2024, she completed an Erasmus+ internship at the Dedalus Social Cooperative in Naples, where she co-developed socio-emotional integration projects with and for unaccompanied foreign minors.

Since 2021, she has been actively involved in several social outreach initiatives – tutoring and closely supporting a refugee child, working with people experiencing homelessness, taking part in a local development project in Lisbon’s Bela-Flor neighborhood, and contributing to a participatory video project in rural Portugal supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Her strong commitment to social justice is what drives her continued investment in Community Psychology, Participatory Practices, and Arts-Based Pedagogy. She also sees her involvement in theater and choral singing as formative experiences that helped shape her perspective and practice as a psychologist.

She is currently part of the Protection team at ProChild CoLAB, working on the Family to Family project.