Dr Melita Giummarra - Researcher Profile

Melita Giummarra

Address

School of Psychology and Psychiatry
Building 17, Clayton

Contact Details

Email: Melita.Giummarra@monash.edu


Biography

Melita is a Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences.  Her research examines multisensory experience of the world, and the connection between self, body and others. Melita's doctoral research examined the embodiment of phantom limbs in amputees, and documented various aspects of phantom limb experience, including pain triggers, somatosensory pain memories, proprioceptive phantom limb perception, parallels with restless legs syndrome, and the potential to modulate phantom limb experience through visual illusions. Her PhD research also identified and documented, for the first time, the novel phenomenon of synaesthesia for pain (that is, the experience of pain triggered by seeing others in pain).

Melita's current research is investigating the relationship between emotions and sensory experiences; including visual information, smells, taste and pain. She is involved in experimental pain studies, as well as studies with clinical populations (e.g., amputees and people who have sustained traumatic injury and/or sufferers of chronic pain). In this research she employs a range of techniques and technologies to better understand the neurobiological correlates of the multisensory experience of pain.

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Keywords

Amputees, Emotion, Experimental pain treatment, Multisensory experience , Pain, Pain management, Phantom limbs , olfaction, perception, sensation, disgust, pain, empathy, pain; empathy; empathy for pain; synaesthesia; synaesthesia for pain; synaesthesia for touch;

Qualifications

PHD
Institution: Monash University
Year awarded: 2011
BA (HONS)
Institution: University of Melbourne, AU
Year awarded: 2002
BA
Institution: University of Melbourne, AU
Year awarded: 2001