About Mara Moldoveanu, PhD | Psychology, Research & Experience

What brought me here

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

Some words, stories, images or people touch us deeply and shape our existence and actions. Such words and people inspired my lifelong quest for psychology.

My background

Education

B.A Psychology

Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

M.A. Clinical Psychology

Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Main specialisation: Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy & Coaching

MSc. Legal Psychology

Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands

PhD Psychology, Double Doctorate

Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands

I decided to study psychology because over the years I’ve met amazing human beings that really inspired me, and I wanted to be like them “when I grew up”. I was also very fascinated by the mysteries of life and human beings. Besides my bachelor’s in psychology, I also pursued a master’s in clinical psychology with a specialisation in cognitive-behavioural therapy. My strong interest in justice brought me to want to study legal psychology in the Netherlands as there was no master’s program at the time in Romania on legal psychology. For my PhD I wanted to dig deeper into legal psychology, especially from a research and teaching perspective.

Putting psychology into practice

Experience

Researcher

Involved in various research projects focusing on self-deception, deception, false memory, and forgetting, as well as marketing research on relationship needs.

Team Nurturer & Facilitator

Supported teams and team processes in a corporate environment, an NGO, and a social startup.

Counseling Psychologist

Individual practice, online and in person, with international clients.

Teaching Assistant

Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and KU Leuven, Belgium. Talks, lectures, tutorials, and student supervision.

Project Manager Assistant

Research Project on Reading Anxiety, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and Living Commonly project, Barcelona, Spain

Along the years I tried different roles and explored different sides of the applied work in psychology, from more fundamental research, to working with different persons and groups. Being involved in this roles represented an exploration in itself of my place in the world, especially in terms of career and purpose. While some I find more fullfiling then others, they are interconnected and it brings me fullfilment when I can combine them in my day to day life.

Memory, self-deception & psychology

Research & publications

View all publications (7)

If you are interested in some of the work I did over the years in legal psychology, check the list of publications below.

Moldoveanu, M.G., Shahvaroughi, A., Mangiulli, I., Hatami, J. & Otgaar, H. (2026). The effect of plausibility and event frequency on the implantation of false beliefs and memories. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 40 (1), e70172. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.70172
Battista, F., Zhang, Y., Zhang, Y., Mangiulli, I., De Beuf, T. L. F., Moldoveanu, M. G., & Otgaar, H. (2026). A systematic review and a meta-analysis on the relationship between intentional forgetting and false memories. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 38(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2025.2601687
Moldoveanu, M. G., Visu-Petra, L., & Otgaar, H. (2025). From anecdotes to real-life examples: A mixed-methods survey on self-deception. Cognition, Brain, Behavior. An Interdisciplinary Journal, 29(2), 175–206. https://doi.org/10.24193/cbb.2025.29.09
Moldoveanu, M.G., & Visu-Petra, L. (2025). Self-deception beyond speculation: A narrative review of the empirical research on motivated false beliefs. Studia UBB Psychologia-Paedagogia, 70(1), 121–151.https://doi.org/10.24193/subbpsyped.2025.1.06
Otgaar, H., Moldoveanu, G., Melis, V., & Howe, M. L. (2022). A new method to implant false autobiographical memories: Blind implantation. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 11(4), 580–586. https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000028
Otgaar, H., Moldoveanu, G., Wang, J., & Howe, M. L. (2016). Exploring the consequences of non-believed memories in the DRM paradigm. Memory, 25(7), 922–933. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2016.1272701
Otgaar, H., Scoboria, A., Howe, M. L., Moldoveanu, G., & Smeets, T. (2016). Challenging memories in children and adults using an imagination inflation procedure. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 3, 270–283.

A little more personally

Outside my work

When I am not working, I love to spend time with my community, travel, read, take photos, be in nature, and write. I have lived in the past 14 years in different countries in Europe (Romania – where I am from, the Netherlands, Catalunya, Belgium, and Portugal), for a few years at a time. These experiences helped me develop and become more culturally aware of our differences and similarities, as well as the challenges and opportunities of moving across different countries.