Overview
Key publications
Research funding
Supervising & teaching
Career
Section: Overview
Overview
Key publications
Research funding
Supervising & teaching
Career

Key details

Areas of expertise

  • Choking under pressure and Sport Anxiety
  • Psychological stress
  • Physical activity interventions to improve stress resilience
  • Sport and exercise psychology
  • Mental health and sport participation

Available to supervise research students

Available for media queries

About Christopher Mesagno

Christopher is a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology with expertise in stress and anxiety in sport and exercise.

With over 20 years of research expertise in anxiety, attention and concentration skills, Christopher has successfully developed theory-matched interventions to improve performance for highly anxious and “choking-susceptible” athletes. Christopher also investigates how physical activity/exercise can improve the health and wellbeing of people in highly stressful occupations and how these interventions can improve resilience to stress.

Christopher maintains a robust academic research profile with more than 50 research articles and book chapters and has given various presentations at national and international conferences. This international research profile has been recognised with awards and keynote conference presentations within sport and exercise psychology. Christopher has also worked (and continues to work) with numerous athletes from a range of team and individual sports to enhance mental skills for better performance and mental health outcomes.

Prior to being employed at Victoria University, Christopher worked at Federation University Australia for 13 years, where he holds an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow position within the Exercise and Sport Science discipline. Christopher maintains strong working relationships national and internationally with partners in Germany, United Kingdom (UK), Austria, and the United States (USA).

Qualifications

  • PhD, Victoria University, Australia, 2006
  • MS (Exercise and Sport Science), University of Florida, U.S.A., 2001
  • BS (Psychology), University of Florida, U.S.A., 1999
  • GCETT, Federation University, Australia, 2017

Key publications

Year Citation
2022 Mesagno, C. (220601). Performance under pressure in self-paced motor tasks (pp. 160-174).

doi: 10.4324/9781003148425-12
2021 . (211105). Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology In Filho, E. ;. (Ed.) Oxford University Press.

doi: 10.1093/oso/9780197512494.001.0001

Year Citation
2022 Armstrong, S. J., Porter, J. E., Larkins, J. A., & Mesagno, C. (221201). Burnout, stress and resilience of an Australian regional hospital during COVID-19: a longitudinal study. BMC Health Services Research, 22(1),

doi: 10.1186/s12913-022-08409-0
2022 Beseler, B., Mesagno, C., Spittle, M., Johnson, N. F., Harvey, J., Talpey, S., & Plumb, M. S. (220801). Validation of a Follow-Through Developmental Sequence for the Overarm Throw for Force in University Students. JOURNAL OF MOTOR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT, 10(2), (309-327).

doi: 10.1123/jmld.2022-0010
2022 Humphrey, A., March, E., Lavender, A. P., Miller, K. J., Alvarenga, M., & Mesagno, C. (220301). Buffering the Fear of COVID-19: Social Connectedness Mediates the Relationship between Fear of COVID-19 and Psychological Wellbeing. Behavioral Sciences, 12(3),

doi: 10.3390/bs12030086
2021 O Donohue, J. S., Mesagno, C., & O Brien, B. (210601). How can stress resilience be monitored? A systematic review of measurement in humans. Current Psychology, 40(6), (2853-2876).

doi: 10.1007/s12144-019-00226-9
2021 McNeil, D. G., Spittle, M., & Mesagno, C. (210101). Imagery training for reactive agility: Performance improvements for decision time but not overall reactive agility. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 19(3), (429-445).

doi: 10.1080/1612197X.2019.1696866
2021 Mesagno, C., Tibbert, S. J., Buchanan, E., Harvey, J. T., & Turner, M. J. (210101). Irrational beliefs and choking under pressure: A preliminary investigation. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 33(6), (569-589).

doi: 10.1080/10413200.2020.1737273
2020 Mesagno, C., Hill, D. M., Steptoe, K., & Brown, D. J. (201101). Sport performance interventions: Evaluating past strategies and providing future recommendations. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY, 51(6), (646-666).

doi: 10.7352/IJSP.2020.51.646
2020 Demetriou, A., Jago, A., Gill, P. R., Mesagno, C., & Ali, L. (200503). Forced retirement transition: A narrative case study of an elite Australian Rules football player. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 18(3), (321-335).

doi: 10.1080/1612197X.2018.1519839

Research funding for the past 5 years

Funding details for this researcher are currently unavailable.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the following organisations for their support and essential contributions to my research:

  • Australia-Germany Joint Research Cooperation Scheme Grant

    Mesagno, C. (CI), Beckmann, J., & Gropel, P. (2016-17): Total Funding $22,800 for the project titled "Choking under pressure: Interventions and mechanisms"

  • South Gippsland Shire Council

    Porter, J. E., Mesagno, C. (Investigator), James, M., & Prokopiv, V. (2020): Total Funding $10,000 for the project titled "South Gippsland Suicide Prevention Project"

  • Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) - Latrobe Health Assembly

    Porter, J. E., Reimers, V., Barbagallo, M., Prokopiv, V., James, M., Dabkowski, E., Mesagno, C. (Investigator), Peck, B., Jones, J., Missen, K., Bailey, C., Snell, C., & Brito, S. (2020): Total Funding $143,866 for the project titled "The Latrobe Health Assembly Community Programs Evaluation"

Supervision of research students at VU

Available to supervise research students

Available for media queries

Other supervision of research students

Christopher brings a wealth of research supervision experience from Federation University Australia where he supervised 30+ honours and post graduate students to completion: 5 PhD, Federation University Australia, Principal Supervisor, 1 PhD, Federation University Australia, Associate Supervisor, 1 PhD, Technical University Munich, Germany, Co-Supervisor, 1 PhD, Ruhr University, Germany, Co-Supervisor, 3 Masters, Federation University Australia, Associate Supervisor.

Teaching activities & experience

Christopher has taught for more than 20 years at universities within Australia and internationally focusing on Sport and Exercise Psychology courses/units, but also teaching into Motor Learning and Research Methods based courses/units.

Christopher is Unit Convenor for:

Key academic roles

Dates Role Department / Organisation
Jan 2015 - Jan 2018
Faculty/ School Higher Degree by Research (HDR) Coordinator
Federation University Australia
Jan 2018 - Oct 2021
School Honours Degree Coordinator
Federation University Australia
Jan 2021 - Oct 2021
University-wide Research Committee Member
Federation University Australia
Dates Role & Department/Organisation
Jan 2015 -
Jan 2018
Faculty/ School Higher Degree by Research (HDR) Coordinator
Federation University Australia
Jan 2018 -
Oct 2021
School Honours Degree Coordinator
Federation University Australia
Jan 2021 -
Oct 2021
University-wide Research Committee Member
Federation University Australia

Key industry, community & government roles

Dates Role Department/Organisation
Jan 2015 - Jan 2018
Dissertation Award Committee Chair
Association for Applied Sport Psychology
Dates Role & Department/Organisation
Jan 2015 - Jan 2018
Dissertation Award Committee Chair
Association for Applied Sport Psychology

Awards

Year Award
2020

Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Supervision - Special Commendation - Federation University Australia
2007

Dissertation Award - Association for Applied Sport Psychology

Keynote and invited speeches

Year Title/Description
2014

Choking under pressure in sport and music: Key concepts, theories, and interventions

Opening Keynote Presentation for the German Association for Sport Psychology Conference, Munich, Germany.
2016

Using sport research to understand components of music performance

Art in Motion (AIM) Training for Excellence Symposium, Munich, Germany.
2018

Choking under pressure: Attention and anxiety-based models and theory-matched interventions

Invited Plenary Session presented at the European Congress of Sport Science, Dublin, Ireland.

Professional memberships

  • Academic Member, Australian Psychological Society