Clara Colombatto

Dr. Clara Colombatto is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, directing the Vision and Cognition Lab. She holds an Honorary Lecturer position at University College London. She earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from Yale University and a BS in Neuroscience and Philosophy from Duke University.

Her research focuses on the perception of other minds and visual roots of social cognition, exploring how attention, gaze dynamics, and metacognition influence social interactions. Key areas include extracting mental states from visual cues, perceptual processing of social groups, and attributions of consciousness to AI systems.

Recent work highlights perceptual advantages for social groups in interactive configurations, illusions of confidence in artificial systems, and the role of metacognition in human-robot collaboration. Collaborations span institutions like Princeton, Oxford, and MIT, addressing topics from moral narratives to machine learning ethics.

Her lab actively involves undergraduate and graduate students in projects involving eye-tracking, computational modeling, and behavioral experiments. Current students include Simran Bal, Layla Hussain, and Caroline Simpson, with alumni such as Daniela Pasqualini.