James McGaugh is a neurobiologist whose work focuses on the field of learning and memory. His earliest work, in the 1950s and 1960s, found that memories are not instantly created to be long-term and permanent. Rather, immediately after an event occurs, the brain is most susceptible to outside influence and only becomes resistant to influence as time passes. As a current research professor at UC Irvine, McGaugh’s current work includes extending these findings into theories of “emotionally-influenced memory consolidation.” McGaugh is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Award and the Karl Lashley Prize in Neuroscience.