Stephen Macknik

Prof. Stephen Macknik is an award-winning neuroscientist and professor at the State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University. He is a co-author, with Susana Martinez-Conde, of the international bestseller Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions, and the recently published Champions of Illusion, and he has written for publications such as Scientific American, The New York Times, The Sunday Times (London), and How It Works. His Scientific American Magazines contributions include two current in-print columns (one in Scientific American MIND, and one in Mente y Cerebro, in the Spanish language) and three special editions of Scientific American: Mind, each of which are dedicated entirely to their contributions. His research has been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, NPR, PBS's NOVA, Science and Nature magazines, and his US BRAIN Initiative-funded research was recently lauded as revolutionary on the blog of the Director of the National Institutes of Health. With Martinez-Conde, he produces the Best Illusion of the Year Contest. He lives in Brooklyn.