Susana Martinez-Conde

Much of Susana's research focuses on how our brains create perceptual and cognitive illusions in everyday life. She has studied the Rotating Snakes illusion, Isia Leviant's Enigma illusion, Victor Vasarely's Nested Squares illusion, Troxler fading and other types of perceptual fading illusions, and various perceptual and attentional illusions in stage magic. Martinez-Conde created the Best Illusion of the Year Contest in 2005, and writes the Illusions column for Scientific American: Mind.

She became an instructor in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School in 2001. She then became lecturer in ophthalmology and laboratory director at University College London. In 2004, she returned to the United States as an assistant professor, and later, associate professor, at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, where she directed the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience. In 2014, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, as professor of ophthalmology, neurology, and physiology & pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where she directs the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience.

She majored in experimental psychology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1992, and obtained her PhD in medicine and surgery from the neuroscience program at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in 1996. She received her postdoctoral training from the Nobel Laureate Prof. David Hubel at Harvard Medical School,

Susana Martinez-Conde (born October 1, 1969) is a neuroscientist and science writer. She is a professor of ophthalmology, neurology, and physiology & pharmacology at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, where she directs the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience. She directed laboratories previously at the Barrow Neurological Institute and University College London. Her research bridges perceptual, cognitive, and oculomotor neuroscience. She is best known for her studies on illusions, eye movements and perception, neurological disorders, and attentional misdirection in stage magic.

Susana Martinez-Conde was born in 1969 in La CoruÑa , Spain, to a merchant sailor father from Santander,Spain and a stay-at-home mother from Garcia,Spain. Her maternal grandfather survived the sinking of the Castillo de Olite in 1939, during the Spanish Civil War.