John O'Keefe, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014

(Neuroscientist) John O'Keefe, FRS FMedSci (born November 18, 1939) is an American-British neuroscientist and a professor at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour and the Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at University College London. He discovered place cells in the hippocampus, and that they show a specific kind of temporal coding in the form of theta phase precession. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2014, together with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser; he has received several other awards. He has worked at the University College London for his entire career, but also held a part-time chair at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at the behest of his Norwegian collaborators, the Mosers.

Education and early life

Born in New York City to Irish immigrant parents, O'Keefe attended Regis High School (Manhattan) and received a BA degree from the City College of New York. He went on to study at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he obtained an MA degree in 1964, and a PhD degree in Psychology in 1967, supervised by Ronald Melzack.

Career and research

O'Keefe went to University College London in 1967 as a US NIMH postdoctoral research fellow working with the late Patrick Wall. He has been there ever since and was promoted to Professor in 1987. At the behest of his collaborators Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser he was appointed to a part-time professorial chair at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2014.

Awards and honours

• 1992 - Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
• 1998 - Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci)
• 2001 - Feldberg Foundation Prize
• 2006 - Grawemeyer Award in psychology (with Lynn Nadel)
• 2007 - British Neuroscience Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Neuroscience
• 2008 - Federation of European Neuroscience Societies European Journal of Neuroscience Award
• 2008 - Gruber Prize in Neuroscience
• 2013 - Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (with Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser)
• 2014 - Kavli Prize jn Neuroscience (with Brenda Milner and Marcus Raichle)
• 2014 - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser)
• 2014 - Honorary Doctor of Science degree from University College Cork
• 2015 - Honorary Doctor of Science degree from City College of New York
• 2015 - Honorary Doctor of Science degree from McGill University
• 2016 - Elected to the National Academy of Sciences.