Nathan Caruana

Nathan Caruana is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University, and a member of the Centre for Reading. His research focuses on cognitive neuroscience mechanisms underlying social interaction, with a focus on autism, schizophrenia, and neurotypical development. He innovates methods like interactive eye-tracking and virtual reality (VR) to study dynamic social processes while maintaining experimental rigor.

He serves as a reviewer for journals including Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, Social Cognition and Affective Neuroscience, and NeuroImage. His projects include collaborations on social eye gaze in VR agents, mobile eyetracking, and VR applications for improving social functioning in autism.

Research interests span social neuroscience, VR applications in clinical assessment, and literacy development. Notable achievements include 7 awards, including Macquarie University Excellence in Higher Degree Research (2017) and multiple grants/commendations.

His work bridges neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and behavioral methods to study social cognition. Media highlights include coverage of his autism-related VR research in 2017.