Joana Butėnaitė-Switkiewicz was a Visiting Academic at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing from 22th November 2022 to 6th December 2022.

Joana obtained a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a master's degree with a specialization in Health Psychology at Vilnius University in Lithuania. She works as a lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University and conducts various courses for students in Psychology. In the years 2011-2019, Joana studied in the joint PhD program in Psychology at Mykolas Romeris University, Vytautas MagnusUniversity and Cordoba University. She defended her thesis Roman Catholic faith of older people: types, expression in the life course and its impact for psychological resilience. 

In her postdoc project, on which she has just started working, Joana explores the psychological resilience of older people. It won funding from the Lithuanian Science Council (Nr. S-PD-22-60). It will be implemented from November 2022 to November 2024.  The goal of the research is to reveal the expression of psychological resilience and experience of older people in the face of challenges in the course of life.

Joana belongs to the International Association for the Psychology of Religion and the International Network on Personal Meaning. She is a volunteer of The Action for Happiness organization, she translates monthly Action for Happiness calendars into Lithuanian. Her research interests: aging, psychological resilience, loneliness, the meaning of life, spirituality.