Schools

Mrs. Rachel Gillett

“I am the Executive Headteacher of Kenilworth and Whitnash Nursery Schools, Co-lead of Warwickshire Teaching School Alliance and a National Leader of Education. Our Schools are innovative and active research is a key part of our work in developing appropriate experiences to fulfil our vision of effective early childhood education. We have been fortunate to work with Dr Suzanne Aussems, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick on a number of occasions to support her research and extend our thinking.

Suzanne is extremely professional in her approach and thoughtful in her research choices. She provides clear ethical frameworks and communicates efficiently and accurately. Suzanne has completed research in both Schools, communicating with myself, my staff teams and the parents of the children involved to ensure the process is very well organised and understood. The children who participate enjoy their involvement because her research is well designed and implemented. As a result of her work staff have considered how language is offered and the value of intonation and expressiveness in addition to the gesticulation or body movements we may link to words and stories.

We very much hope to continue to link with Suzanne in any future research and are confident to endorse her professional approach and thoughtful, meaningful research.”

Students

Ms. Charlotte Devey-Smith

“I am an Assistant Psychologist working in a school in East London. I provide interventions for students, train staff members on areas of psychology such as Anxiety and Working Memory, and follow the direction and supervision of an Educational Psychologist. I had the pleasure of meeting Suzanne during my Undergraduate Degree at the University of Warwick. Here, she co-supervised my dissertation and supported me on a funded student placement scheme (URSS: Undergraduate Research Support Scheme).

My dissertation investigated sound symbolism and iconic gesture. The research question was “Can iconic pitch cues help 14-17-month-old infants understand iconic gestures?”. I further explored this, with the help of Suzanne, in a URSS project. I thoroughly enjoyed working alongside Suzanne and gaining insight into the world of academic research.

I would be more than happy to recommend Suzanne as a supervisor for future dissertation projects/placements students. She is not only professional and articulate but can also explain difficult concepts in easy to understand ways. She does so with kindness and sensitivity and is a fountain of knowledge. She will go the extra mile to help you and make sure you develop to the best of your abilities.

I hope to continue working with Suzanne as I develop my career, and publish research together in the future!”

Ms. Rebecca Morris

“I have worked with Suzanne as a Summer placement student in 2022. My main task involved upkeep of the family database used to securely store child participant information, by contacting parents to update information and removing participants from the database who were not able to be contacted or had requested to be removed. I also worked on recruitment of new participants using social media, such as Facebook, and added these new sign-ups to the database. Over the placement, I was taught how to code infant vocalisations using the software ELAN. Suzanne also taught me new ways to use SPSS, such as for calculating inter-rater reliability. I also met with a PhD student to voice record stimuli to be used in their research project.

Suzanne has been extremely welcoming and engaging throughout the placement and has helped me to gain new skills that will be useful throughout my further education and future jobs. She is evidently passionate about the research area and learning from Suzanne has been thoroughly enjoyable. I am very grateful to have been given this summer placement and appreciate all that Suzanne has helped me with. It has been a privilege to spend my summer on this placement, before continuing with my studies.”

Mr. Paul Gering

“Suzanne was my supervisor on a URSS placement that I completed in the Summer of 2022. During this placement, we re-analysed data from an experiment conducted by Suzanne and Professor Sotaro Kita, looking at non-verbal behaviours in infants in response to sound symbolic stimuli. I learnt how to code video recordings of infants using ELAN software and I learnt how to use R software to visualise and analyse infant data. Towards the end of the placement, I had the opportunity to present my findings to other placement students as well as Professor Sotaro Kita. I also attended a meeting of the academics in the language and communication department of the University of Warwick.

This has been a great opportunity for me to apply what I have learnt during my undergraduate degree to research in the field of language and communication. Suzanne has been incredibly supportive and patient with me, teaching me more advanced research and statistical methods that I can apply in the future to my master’s degree. She has given me the opportunity to connect with other students and academics in the field and engage in public speaking events, improving my confidence talking in front of other people. It was great to learn from someone who is so passionate about what she does. I would definitely recommend that other students think about doing a URSS placement or a different project with Suzanne as their supervisor.”

Research Assistants

Ms. Lucy Martin

“I am a Research Assistant working on the Baby Books development research project at Royal Holloway, University of London. Here I had the privilege of working under the guidance of Suzanne, who had assumed the postdoctoral role on the project and therefore supervised my first role in research. The research investigated language development of 1-year-old babies in relation to picture books and shared book reading with caregivers. The main focus surrounds whether infants learn new words from educational picture books, and if the different properties of educational picture books would benefit language acquisition. The insight and knowledge that Suzanne provided me into this new world of research was invaluable, and I am lucky to have worked with her during my first role in research.

I cannot recommend Suzanne highly enough, not only does she demonstrate extreme professionalism, but is an incredible mentor through her ways of communicating with colleagues of all roles. She is compassionate and kind, whilst maintaining an easy-to-understand approach to difficult concepts. Her quality of work is impeccable, and she really took care to aid my personal development also. I very much hope to remain in contact with Suzanne and I wish to have the privilege to work alongside her again as I continue my studies and look to develop my career.”