James L. McGaugh is Director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine.

McGaugh pioneered in research investigating how drugs and stress hormones influence the formation of lasting memories and how the amygdala, a region located deep in the temporal lobe of the brain, influences the processing of newly acquired information in other brain regions.

The author of over 500 scientific publications concerned with brain processes and memory, McGaugh is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the Mexican Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a William James Fellow and past president of the American Psychological Society. McGaugh received the John P. McGovern Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association.