Martine Van Puyvelde, Mpsy, Mmus, PhD, received a Master in Clinical Psychology from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (summa cum laude, 2009), a PhD in Psychological Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2014) and a Master in Music (cum laude, 1998). For her master-thesis, she received the Janine Segers Award (2010) for the best research in a child-related topic. Her PhD research covered psychophysiological (cardio-respiratory processes and polysomnography) and acoustical speech analyses on the development of social human interaction. She has been working as a postdoc researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Universidade Nova Lisboa in Portugal and the Royal Military Academy Brussels. Since 2016, she works as a postdoc researcher at the Royal Military Academy Brussels and as a visiting professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, being titular of four courses in Biological Psychology and Clinical Psychology. She works in close collaboration with the BabyLab of Middlesex University (Dr. Fabia Franco) and the Somatosensory & Affective Neuroscience Group at Liverpool JM University (Prof. F. McGlone). Her research work involves:
1. Human performance in extreme environments: e.g., sleep study on-site in Antarctica at the French Station Dumont D’Urville in 2017-2018; the impact of acute hypoxia on voice output due to high altitudes; sleep deprivation; skill maintenance and deterioration
2. Interaction synchrony between parents and infants: tonal synchrony and proto-musical aspects in mother-baby vocal interaction, physiological synchrony between mothers and infants
3. Affective touch: the impact of stroking and non-stroking touch on the development of psychophysiological co-regulation between parents and (preterm) infants (in collaboration with Prof. F. McGlone)
4. Music and language: the ontogeny of music and language in infants; the impact of rhythmic and musical training in linguistic capabilities (supervised by Dr. Fabia Franco and in collaboration with Dr. F. Bravo)
5. Music and cognition: the impact of music on cognitive performance in children (Music Mood Match Hypothesis of Dr. Fabia Franco).
Besides researcher, she is a licensed Relation- & Family Therapist (2013 – Kern/Rapunzel) and she is still active as a flutist.
A Middlesex University Research Group 