Susana Martinez-Conde is a highly respected Spanish-American neuroscientist and science communicator, born on October 1, 1969, in A Coruña, Spain. She currently serves as a professor of ophthalmology, neurology, physiology, and pharmacology at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. There, she directs the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience, focusing on interdisciplinary research that bridges perceptual, cognitive, and oculomotor neuroscience.
Her academic journey began with a Bachelor of Science degree in Experimental Psychology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1992. She then earned a PhD in Medicine and Surgery from the neuroscience program at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in 1996. Following her doctoral work, Martinez-Conde completed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School under the mentorship of Nobel Laureate David Hubel, gaining expertise as a neurobiology instructor.
Martinez-Conde’s professional career includes leading research laboratories at the University College London and the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, before joining SUNY Downstate. Her research is widely recognized for exploring visual illusions, eye movements, attention, perception, and neurological disorders. Notably, she is an expert on how attentional misdirection is used in stage magic, a topic that bridges her neuroscience expertise with popular culture.
She has published extensively in prestigious scientific journals, including Nature, Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Beyond academia, she is a prolific science writer with numerous popular science articles and a regular column in Scientific American focusing on the neuroscience of illusions.
Her bestselling international book, Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions, has been translated into 19 languages and recognized as one of the best books of 2011 by London’s Evening Standard. Martinez-Conde is also involved in public science outreach and education, serving as executive producer of the annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest and collaborating with magicians and science museums to promote neuroscience literacy.
Throughout her career, she has received several awards and honors, including the Science Educator of the Year award from the Society for Neuroscience and the Empire Innovator Award from New York State. Martinez-Conde is considered among the premier neuroscience communicators in the United States, featured widely in global media and frequently appearing on television and radio programs related to brain science and perception.
Her expertise and contributions make her a highly influential figure in both academic neuroscience and public science education, which underscores the significance of her involvement in the recent lawsuit against Apple regarding the unauthorized use of copyrighted materials in AI training.
