Susana Martinez-Conde facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Susana Martinez-Conde
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Susana Martinez-Conde receiving the Science Educator Award from the Society for Neuroscience, 2014. Credit: Joe Shymanski, Society for Neuroscience
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Susana Martinez-Conde
October 1, 1969 |
| Nationality | Spanish, American |
| Alma mater | Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Harvard University |
| Known for | Illusions, art and visual perception, attention and awareness, Books: Sleights of Mind |
| Awards | Science Educator of the Year - Society for Neuroscience |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience, Science Writing |
| Institutions | Harvard Medical School, University College London, Barrow Neurological Institute, State University of New York |
Susana Martinez-Conde, born on October 1, 1969, is a scientist from Spain and America. She studies the brain and also writes about science.
She teaches at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and leads a special lab called the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience. Before this, she led labs at other places like the Barrow Neurological Institute and University College London. Her work connects how we see, think, and move our eyes. She is famous for studying illusions, how our eyes move and see, brain problems, and how magicians trick our attention.
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Early Life and Learning
Susana Martinez-Conde was born in 1969 in A Coruña, Spain. Her father was a sailor, and her mother stayed at home.
She studied experimental psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid in 1992. She then earned her PhD in medicine and surgery, focusing on neuroscience, in 1996. After that, she trained with David Hubel, a scientist who won a Nobel Prize, at Harvard Medical School.
Her Career in Science
In 2001, Susana Martinez-Conde started teaching neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Later, she became a lecturer and lab director at University College London.
In 2004, she came back to the United States. She worked as a professor at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. There, she led the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience. In 2014, she moved to Brooklyn, New York. She became a professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where she now leads the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience.
What She Researches
Much of Dr. Martinez-Conde's work looks at how our brains create illusions. These are tricks of the mind that happen in our daily lives. She has studied many famous illusions, like the Rotating Snakes illusion. She also looks at how magicians use illusions to trick people's attention.
How Our Brains See Illusions
Dr. Martinez-Conde created the Best Illusion of the Year Contest in 2005. This contest celebrates the most amazing new visual illusions. She also writes a column about illusions for Scientific American Mind magazine.
Attention and How We See
Her research also explores how our attention affects what we see. She studies how the brain pays attention and how we become aware of things. She has looked at how our vision can fade and how magicians use misdirection to control where we look.
Dr. Martinez-Conde was one of the first to study magic tricks from a brain science point of view. She believes that brain scientists and magicians have a lot in common. She thinks they should work together to learn from each other.
Art and Brain Science
She also researches the link between art and how our eyes and brains work. She studies how our brains see movement in Op art, which is a type of art that uses optical illusions. She has even found new visual illusions based on the artworks of Victor Vasarely.
Eye Movements and Brain Health
Dr. Martinez-Conde studies how small, natural eye movements, called microsaccades, affect what we see. She also looks at how brain diseases can change eye movements. Understanding these changes can help doctors find and diagnose brain problems earlier.
Images for kids
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Susan Martinez-Conde at CSICon 2018, talking about illusions.
See also
In Spanish: Susana Martínez-Conde para niños
