Orcid ID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5408-3329
Daniela Zúñiga is a psychologist with a PhD in Psychology from the University of Chile. She holds a Master’s degree in Legal and Forensic Psychology from the Universidad de la Frontera (UFRO) and has specialized training in Systemic Family Therapy from the Chilean Institute of Family Therapy. She is currently a faculty member at the Institute of Psychological Studies within the Faculty of Medicine at the Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh).
Throughout her career, Daniela has worked at the intersection of clinical practice and criminology. Her research focuses on the assessment of socio-emotional competencies during adolescence, the evaluation of personality traits in young people, and the rights and participation of children in judicial contexts.
She has led several research projects, including the FONDECYT Initiation Project No. 11240951, “Criminological and Victimological Factors Linked to Childhood Offending and Their Relationship with Family Court Practices,” as well as projects such as “Social Representations of the Right to Be Heard and the Principle of Participation from the Perspective of Institutionalized Children and Adolescents and Their Caregivers” (2020–2022) and “Learning to Live Together,” both funded by the Vice-Rectorate for Research of the Universidad Austral de Chile.
Her work has been published in academic journals such as Revista Criminalidad, Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud as well as in publications aimed at broader audiences, including De Familias y Terapias and Señales, among others.