IRVINE : Researcher Elected to American Academy
Noted UC Irvine psychobiologist James L. McGaugh has been elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, university officials announced this week.
McGaugh, who already is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is an internationally known expert on the effect of drugs on memory and how the brain stores information. His current research could impact treatment of memory disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease.
“This is an enormous honor for me because you are selected by your colleagues throughout the United States,” said McGaugh, 60, who learned of his election while traveling in Singapore last week. “I was overwhelmed.”
The American Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams and other leaders of the fledgling United States. Its charter calls for cultivating “every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people.”
The academy is based in Cambridge, Mass., but has centers at the University of Chicago and UCI.
McGaugh is the 20th UCI faculty member to be elected to the academy. Others include Chancellor Jack W. Peltason, chemist F. Sherwood Rowland, atmospheric chemist Ralph Cicerone, evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala, physicist Frederick Reines, psychobiologist Ricardo Miledi, political scientist David Easton and English professor Murray Krieger.
McGaugh, a founding faculty member of the 27-year-old university, has served as chairman of the psychobiology department, dean of biological sciences, vice chancellor and executive vice chancellor of the university. He currently is director of UCI’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.
