Valentina Canessa-Pollard

Senior Lecturer in Psychology

About

Dr. Valentina Canessa-Pollard (formerly Valentina Cartei)

Current role: Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Curator of the Human Factor Professional Learning Programme, Programme lead for MSc Coaching Psychology and BSc Counselling Psychology Programmes, Sustainability Lead for the Department of Psychology and Criminology

Non-academic roles:

Currently, I run VCPollard Coaching, a private practice as a Coaching Psychologist specialising in career transitions and outdoor coaching. My previous roles also include serving as Trainer, Researcher, and Volunteer Services Coordinator at Survivors’ Network Rape Crisis Centre in Brighton (2010–2017), and as a Trustee for Rape Crisis England & Wales (2016–2018).

Professional

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society. Additionally, I am a qualified Coach.

Key Publications

See my ORCID records

Publications related to human vocal communication

Papers published in major international peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary scientific journals

Canessa-Pollard, V., Reby, D., Banerjee, R., Oakhill, J., & Garnham, A. (2022). The development of explicit occupational gender stereotypes in children: Comparing perceived gender ratios and competence beliefs. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 134, 103703.

Waters, S., Kanber, E., Lavan, N., Belyk, M., Carey, D., Cartei, V., Lally, C., Miquel, M. and McGettigan, C. (2021). Singers show enhanced performance and neural representation of vocal imitation. Philosophical Transactions B.

Cartei, V., Oakhill, J., Garnham, A., Banerjee, R., & Reby, D. (2021). Voice Cues Influence Children’s Assessment of Adults’ Occupational Competence. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 45(2), 281-296.

Cartei, V., Oakhill, J., Garnham, A., Banerjee, R., & Reby, D. (2020). “This is what a mechanic sounds like”: children’s vocal control reveals implicit occupational stereotypes. Psychological Science, 31(8), 957-967.

Cartei, V., Banerjee, R., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., Roberts, L. & Reby, D. (2020). Physiological and perceptual correlates of masculinity in children’s voices. Horm. Behav.

Cartei, V., Banerjee, R., Garnham, A., Oakhill, J., Roberts, L. & Reby, D. (2019). Children can control the expression of masculinity and femininity through the voice. R. Soc. Open Sci. [citations: 5]

Cartei, V., Banerjee, R., Hardouin, L. & Reby, D (2019) The role of sex-related voice variation in children Br. J. Dev. Psychol. [citations: 1]

Waters, S., Kanber, E., Lavan, N., Carey, D., Cartei, V., Lally, C., … & McGettigan, C. (2019). Neural representations of enhanced speech motor control in trained singers. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 146(4), 2790-2790.

Pisanski, K., Cartei, V., McGettigan, C., Raine, J., & Reby, D. (2016). Voice modulation: a window into the origins of human vocal control?. Trends in cognitive sciences, 20(4), 304-318.

Cartei, V., Bond, R., & Reby, D. (2014). What makes a voice masculine: Physiological and acoustical correlates of women’s ratings of men’s vocal masculinity. Hormones and Behavior, 66(4), 569-576.

Cartei, V., Cowles, W., Banerjee, R., & Reby, D. (2014). Control of voice gender in pre‐pubertal children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 32(1), 100-106.

Cartei, V., & Reby, D. (2013). Effect of formant frequency spacing on perceived gender in pre-pubertal children’s voices. PLoS One, 8(12), e81022.

Cartei, V., Cowles, H. W., & Reby, D. (2012). Spontaneous voice gender imitation abilities in adult speakers. PloS one, 7(2), e31353.

Cartei, V., & Reby, D. (2012). Acting gay: Male actors shift the frequency components of their voices towards female values when playing homosexual characters. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 36, 79-93.

Book Chapters

Cartei, V. & Reby, D. (2019). The evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice. In F. La (Ed.), Training Female Voices. Compton Publishing.

Publications related to sexual violence recovery and prevention

Love, G., De Michele, G., Giakoumidaki, C., Sánchez, E. H., Lukera, M., & Cartei, V. (2017). Improving access to sexual violence support for marginalised individuals: Findings from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* and the black and minority ethnic communities. Critical and Radical Social Work, 5(2), 163-179.

Rymer, S., & Cartei, V. (2015). Supporting transgender survivors of sexual violence: learning from users’ experiences. Critical and Radical Social Work, 3(1), 155-164.

Books

Rymer, S., & Cartei, V. (2019). Working with Trans Survivors of Sexual Violence: A Guide for Professionals. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Cartei, V. & Grosso, F. (2016). Oltre il Silenzio. Franco Angeli Editore.

Research

I lead on the following labs:

Research in Practice Lab

My research in this area focuses Coaching Psychology particularly from Cognitive-Behavioural and Ecological perspectives, career transitions, professional and academic development, ethical leadership, outdoor practice.

Sexualised Violence and Abuse Research Lab

My research in this area focuses on investigating the psychosocial factors involved in sexual violence, abuse and trauma prevention and recovery, as well as in developing theory-based interventions within an empowerment ethos to improve well-being outcomes for survivors of sexual violence and abuse, no matter how or when it happened.

I am also part of Lab for Global Research on Gender, Sexuality and Identity

I have focused on the role of vocal communication in health, and I am investigating voice-based approaches to improve well-being. More recently, I have researched on mental health and well-being of LGBTQ+ youth.