Simon Baron-Cohen

Director of Autism Research Centre
Cambridge University

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is Director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge. He holds degrees in Human Sciences from New College, Oxford, a PhD in Psychology from UCL, and an M.Phil in Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry. He held lectureships in both of these departments in London before moving to Cambridge in 1994. He is also Director of CLASS (Cambridge Lifespan Asperger Syndrome Service), a clinic for adults with suspected AS.

He is author of Mindblindness (MIT Press, 1995), The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain (Penguin UK/Basic Books, 2003), Zero Degrees of Empathy (Penguin UK, 2011, and published under The Science of Evil by Basic Books, US), and Prenatal Testosterone in Mind (MIT Press, 2005). He has edited a number of scholarly anthologies, including Understanding Other Minds (OUP, 1993, 2001), The Maladapted Mind (Erlbaum, 1997) and Synaesthesia (Blackwells, 1997).

He has also written books for parents and teachers such as Autism: The Facts (OUP, 1993), Tourette Syndrome: The Facts (OUP, 1998), and Teaching children with autism to mind read (Wiley, 1998). He is author of the DVD-ROM Mind Reading: an interactive guide to emotions (Jessica Kingsley Ltd, 2003) that was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Off-Line Learning.

He has been awarded prizes from the American Psychological Association, the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), and the British Psychological Society (BPS) for his research into autism. He has been President of the Psychology Section of the BA, Vice President of the International Society for Autism Research, and the National Autistic Society, and received the 2006 Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge from the BPS. His current research is testing the ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism at the neural, endocrine and genetic levels.

Simon Baron-Cohen is an Editor-in-Chief of the online open access journal Molecular Autism.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Research image of neuron organization in c elegans.

Worms help untangle brain structure/function mystery

The synaptic connectome of most animals bears little resemblance to functional brain maps, but it can still predict neuronal activity, according to two preprints that tackle the puzzle in C. elegans

By Holly Barker
29 August 2025 | 7 min read
Research image of microglia in organoids.

Microglia nurture young interneurons

The immune cells secrete a growth factor that “sets the supply of GABAergic interneurons in the developing brain.”

By Lauren Schenkman
28 August 2025 | 4 min read

Xaq Pitkow shares his principles for studying cognition in our imperfect brains and bodies

Pitkow discusses how evolution's messy constraints shape optimal brain algorithms, from Bayesian inference to ecological affordances.

By Paul Middlebrooks
27 August 2025 | 1 min read

privacy consent banner

Privacy Preference

We use cookies to provide you with the best online experience. By clicking “Accept All,” you help us understand how our site is used and enhance its performance. You can change your choice at any time. To learn more, please visit our Privacy Policy.