John O'Keefe (neuroscientist)

John O'Keefe FRS FMedSci
O'Keefe in 2014
Born	(1939-11-18) November 18, 1939 (age 84) New York City, U.S.
Citizenship	United States United Kingdom
Alma mater	City College of New York (BA) McGill University (MA, PhD)
Known for	Discovery of place cells
Awards	Gruber Prize in Neuroscience (2008) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2014) Kavli Prize (2014) Physiological Society Annual Review Prize Lecture (2016)
Scientific career
Fields	Neuroscience Psychology
Institutions	University College London
Thesis	Response properties of amygdalar units in the freely moving cat (1967)
Doctoral advisor	Ronald Melzack
Notable students	Neil Burgess (postdoc)[1]
Website	Website at UCL

John O'Keefe, FRS FMedSci (born November 18, 1939) is an American-British neuroscientist, psychologist 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 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.