User:Sounds of the mind/sandbox

Carina T (Dr Carina Teixeira, PhD) is a Doctor in Psychology, singer, songwriter, and academic. She combines a singing career with an academic career. Carina was born in Portugal but lives in London since 2016.

After finishing her PhD / Doctorate at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, she moved to Boston, United States, to conduct research at the Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation. After two years in Boston, Carina decided to move to London, where she had previously lived between 2011 and 2012 when doing training at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London as part of her PhD.

Music Career

Carina released her first single “Too Real” in 2018 and received good reception. Kms reviews blog wrote “From the first seconds I fell in love with the warm and fragile setting the song reflects (...). There’s something in her voice that makes her irresistible”. After "Too Real", Carina released “Inside Your Mind”, “Bucket List” , “I know it’s over” , “I follow rivers” and “The End”. Carina usually addresses issues surrounding mental health or social problems in her songs and music videos. Carina directed her music videos for “I know it’s over” to raise awareness about suicide and “The End” which addresses domestic violence. In regard to the song and music video of “The End”, the blog “The Other Side Reviews” mentioned that "Through her performance, Carina T takes you on a journey of realisation and the need to take action”.

When writing about Carina’s song “Inside your Mind”, the blog Static Dive said "the lyrics dug a little deeper than the average Pop song into the psyches of the characters at the center of the song’s romantic struggle. It was clear there was something else going on here. That “something else” is Carina herself. Yes, she looks and sounds like a Pop singer. And she is definitely that. However, the London-based, Portuguese artist is also a scientist. Specifically, she has a PhD in Psychology. So, she was fully qualified to go “Inside Your Mind”.

Academic career

After she finished her PhD in Psychology, she moved to Boston, United States, to work as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in psychiatric rehabilitation at Boston University. Carina described her move to Boston as stressful. She had very little money and struggled to rent a place to live. Nowadays Carina teaches Psychology and Neuroscience to MSc students at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. She was nominated in 2020 and 2021 to the King’s Education Awards, voted by her students. Carina has published several articles in scientific journals.

Early life

Carina was born in Madeira island, Portugal, to Maria dos Milagres de Gouveia Vieira Teixeira, a housewife, and Arnaldo Nicolau Vieira Teixeira, a taxi driver. She is the youngest of four siblings. Her grandparents were farmers.

Carina always attended public schools. She was a very good student, but due to financial difficulties her father said to her that she could not attend University. However, Carina got scholarships and moved to mainland Portugal at age of 18 to study at the University of Coimbra. In 2006, when finishing her five-year Licentiate Degree, she won the award for the best 3% students of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra. She did an MSc degree and a Doctoral degree (PhD) in the same University.