World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
Nancy Kanwisher

Nancy Kanwisher

Award Badge
Best Female Scientists
2025

D-Index & Metrics

Best Female Scientists

D-Index
119
Citations
75400
World Ranking
571
National Ranking
342

Neuroscience

D-Index
120
Citations
77068
World Ranking
381
National Ranking
226

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2025 - Research.com Best Female Scientists Award
  • 2016 - National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award
  • 2009 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  • 2007 - Golden Brain Award, Minerva Foundation
  • 2005 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences
  • 1999 - Troland Research Awards, United States National Academy of Sciences For her innovative research on visual attention, awareness, and imagery, including the characterization of a face perception module and discovery of a place encoding module.

Overview

Nancy Kanwisher is affiliated with MIT in the United States and has a research focus primarily in Neuroscience and Computer Science. Their work centers around cognitive neuroscience and areas such as computer vision, social psychology, artificial intelligence, and experimental and cognitive psychology.

The scientist's research topics cover a range of subjects including face recognition and perception, neural dynamics and brain function, visual attention and saliency detection, visual perception and processing mechanisms, face recognition and analysis, action observation and synchronization, and memory and neural mechanisms.

Some of the recent papers by Nancy Kanwisher include:

  • Using artificial neural networks to ask 'why' questions of minds and brains, 2023, Trends in Neurosciences
  • The neural architecture of language: Integrative modeling converges on predictive processing, 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  • Selective responses to faces, scenes, and bodies in the ventral visual pathway of infants, 2021, Current Biology
  • The neural architecture of language: Integrative modeling converges on predictive processing, 2020, bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
  • Dissociating language and thought in large language models, 2024, Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Frequent co-authors of Nancy Kanwisher include:

  • Rebecca Saxe
  • N. Apurva Ratan Murty
  • Joshua B. Tenenbaum
  • Evelina Fedorenko
  • Meenakshi Khosla

Common venues for publication include:

  • Journal of Vision
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
  • Trends in Cognitive Sciences
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
  • Current Biology

Throughout their career, Nancy Kanwisher has received several awards such as the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award in 2016, election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, the Golden Brain Award from the Minerva Foundation in 2007, membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2005, and the Troland Research Awards from the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1999 for research on visual attention, awareness, and imagery including identification of specialized modules for face perception and place encoding.

Best Publications

  • The Fusiform Face Area: A Module in Human Extrastriate Cortex Specialized for Face Perception

    Nancy Kanwisher;Josh McDermott;Marvin M. Chun;Marvin M. Chun

  • A cortical representation of the local visual environment

    Russell Epstein;Nancy Kanwisher

  • People thinking about thinking people. The role of the temporo-parietal junction in "theory of mind".

    Rebecca Saxe;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • A cortical area selective for visual processing of the human body

    Paul E. Downing;Yuhong Jiang;Miles Shuman;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • The fusiform face area: a cortical region specialized for the perception of faces.

    Nancy Kanwisher;Galit Yovel

  • The lateral occipital complex and its role in object recognition.

    Kalanit Grill-Spector;Zoe Kourtzi;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Domain specificity in face perception

    Nancy Kanwisher

  • The fusiform face area subserves face perception, not generic within-category identification.

    Kalanit Grill-Spector;Nicholas Knouf;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind

    Nancy Kanwisher

  • Mental Imagery of Faces and Places Activates Corresponding Stimulus-Specific Brain Regions

    Unknown

  • fMRI evidence for objects as the units of attentional selection.

    Kathleen M. O'Craven;Paul E. Downing;Paul E. Downing;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Neuroimaging of cognitive functions in human parietal cortex

    Jody C Culham;Nancy G Kanwisher

  • Broad domain generality in focal regions of frontal and parietal cortex

    Evelina G. Fedorenko;John Duncan;John Duncan;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Binocular Rivalry and Visual Awareness in Human Extrastriate Cortex

    Frank Tong;Ken Nakayama;J.Thomas Vaughan;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Representation of Perceived Object Shape by the Human Lateral Occipital Complex

    Zoe Kourtzi;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • The parahippocampal place area: recognition, navigation, or encoding?

    Russell Epstein;Alison Harris;Damian Stanley;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Understanding Other Minds: Linking Developmental Psychology and Functional Neuroimaging

    R. Saxe;S. Carey;N. Kanwisher

  • Activation in Human MT/MST by Static Images with Implied Motion

    Zoe Kourtzi;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Repetition blindness: Type recognition without token individuation ☆

    Nancy G. Kanwisher

  • Stages of processing in face perception: an MEG study.

    Jia Liu;Alison Harris;Nancy Kanwisher;Nancy Kanwisher

  • Visual attention: Insights from brain imaging

    Nancy Kanwisher;Ewa Wojciulik

Frequent Co-Authors

Chris I. Baker
Chris I. Baker National Institutes of Health
Kami Koldewyn
Kami Koldewyn Bangor University
Edward Vul
Edward Vul University of California, San Diego
Bruce Fischl
Bruce Fischl Harvard University
Hans Op de Beeck
Hans Op de Beeck Allen Institute for Brain Science
Yuhong V. Jiang
Yuhong V. Jiang University of Minnesota
Paul E. Downing
Paul E. Downing Bangor University
Jia Liu
Jia Liu Tsinghua University

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