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 October 1, 1969) is a scientist from Spain and the United States. She studies the brain, which is called a neuroscientist. She also writes about science.
She is a professor at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center. There, she leads a special lab called the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience. Before this, she led labs at the Barrow Neurological Institute and University College London. Her work helps us understand how our brains see, think, and control our eye movements. She is famous for her studies on illusions, how our eyes move and what we see, brain disorders, and how magicians trick our attention.
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Early Life and Education
Susana Martinez-Conde was born in 1969 in A Coruña, Spain. Her father was a sailor from Santander, Spain, and her mother stayed at home. Her grandfather survived a ship sinking during the Spanish Civil War in 1939.
She studied experimental psychology at the Complutense University of Madrid in 1992. She then earned her PhD in medicine and surgery from the neuroscience program at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1996. After that, she trained with a Nobel Prize winner, David Hubel, at Harvard Medical School.
Career Highlights
In 2001, Susana Martinez-Conde became a teacher of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Later, she became a lecturer and lab director at University College London. In 2004, she moved back to the United States.
She became 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 is now a professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where she leads the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience.
Understanding the Brain: Her Research
Much of Dr. Martinez-Conde's research looks at how our brains create illusions. These are tricks of the mind that make us see things differently than they are. She has studied many famous illusions, like the Rotating Snakes illusion. She also looks at illusions used in stage magic.
Illusions and Attention
Dr. Martinez-Conde created the Best Illusion of the Year Contest in 2005. She also writes a column about illusions for Scientific American Mind magazine. Her work explores how our attention affects what we see. She studies how the brain pays attention and how we become aware of things.
She has been a leader in studying stage magic from a science point of view. She believes that brain scientists and magicians have many similar interests. She thinks they should work together to learn from each other.
Art, Vision, and Eye Movements
Dr. Martinez-Conde has also researched the link between art and how we see. She studies how our brains understand art. She has looked at how moving illusions work in Op art, which is a type of art that uses optical illusions. She even found new visual illusions based on the artworks of Victor Vasarely.
Her research also covers how our eye movements, vision, and what we see all work together. This includes both healthy brains and brains with diseases. She studies tiny, automatic eye movements called microsaccades. These small movements affect how we see and process information. She also studies how brain diseases affect eye movements. This helps scientists understand these disorders better and find them earlier.
Images for kids
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Susan Martinez-Conde at CSICon 2018
See also
In Spanish: Susana Martínez-Conde para niños
