Patricia Dionne (PhD) is a full professor in the Département d’orientation professionnelle (Guidance and Career Counseling) at the Université de Sherbrooke. Her research focuses on group career counseling and advocacy with youth and adults living in situations of vulnerability, as well as with immigrants. She mobilised a cultural-historical perspective grounded in social justice. She is interested in group activity processes, the language-based instruments mobilized within them, as well as the learning and development they foster. She contributes to the development of group career counseling intervention programs aimed at strengthening the empowerment of young people and adults. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7506-316X

Melanie Hochmuth is a research associate and doctoral researcher at the Chair of Business Education at the University of Bamberg, Germany. Her academic profile is shaped by a strong interest in educational transitions, vocational learning processes, and the conditions that support successful educational pathways. In her research, she focuses particularly on school-to-work transitions, career decision-making, training quality and satisfaction, dropout prevention in vocational education, and discrimination and inequality in educational trajectories. As part of her doctoral research, Melanie Hochmuth examines how young people navigate the transition from school into vocational education and training within the German dual system. Her PhD project explores the role of work values, career aspirations, and workplace experiences in young people’s decision-making processes. By taking a process-oriented perspective, her research seeks to better understand how adolescents evaluate vocational pathways, negotiate expectations, and make sense of organisational environments during times of uncertainty and change. Her work contributes to current international debates on school-to-work transitions, vocational identity development, and person–environment fit in vocational contexts. At the University of Bamberg, she teaches courses in research methods in vocational education and training as well as professional action in educational contexts. Her teaching emphasises critical reflection, evidence-based practice, and the development of analytical skills that enable students to engage with current challenges in vocational education.

Mariana Lucas Casanova, PhD in Psychology, is a psychologist with over 20 years of experience working with higher education students and graduates, specialised in Educational Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Vocational and Career Development. She is an Integrated Researcher at the Centre for Research & Innovation in Education (inED) and an Invited Adjunct Professor at the School of Education, Polytechnic of Porto (ESE-IPP). Using mixed-methods approaches, her research explores the experience of work, precarity, unemployment, psychosocial uncertainty, green guidance, and socio-political participation. She has led and implemented EU-funded research and intervention projects involving vulnerable social groups such as migrants and young people with disabilities. Adopting a multidisciplinary critical approach grounded in social justice, her work examines the impact of socioeconomic and political factors on the social value and organisation of work, as well as on individuals’ experiences and meanings related to employment and career development, thus contributing to both policymaking and career development practice. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7888-9706 https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariana-lucas-casanova-8546992/

Dr Victoria Metcalf is a New Zealand researcher, science communicator, and strategic and stakeholder engagement specialist committed to making a difference. As a scientist, she’s made many trips to the Antarctic, researching environmental change impacts on Antarctic fish and shellfish, along with research on New Zealand species. She worked in the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor as National Coordinator of the Participatory Science Platform, a flagship initiative engaging communities, educators and scientists to work together on locally meaningful community science projects. She was previously the External Engagement Advisor for the Royal Society Te Apārangi, Principal Advisor External Engagement for the Ministry of Education, and is currently Principal Advisor, Careers and System Integration at the Tertiary Education Commission working on a wide range of projects spanning from careers to all aspects of tertiary education.