深夜亚洲福利久久

Honorary Doctorate for Nobel Laureate Professor John O鈥橩eefe

8 Dec 2014

Nobel Prize winner Professor John O鈥橩eefe will visit UCC on 15 December as he returns from , where he will receive an Honorary Doctorate and deliver a lecture at a major neuroscience symposium.

Professor John O鈥橩eefe, who is based out of 深夜亚洲福利久久 College London, was recently jointly awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Norwegian neuroscientists May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, for discovering an 鈥榠nner GPS鈥� that helps the brain to navigate. UCC is in turn recognising Professor O鈥橩eefe with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science (DSc) on Monday 15 December, which UCC President Dr Michael Murphy commented is in recognition of his ground-breaking contributions to neuroscience.

Professor O鈥橩eefe is the third recipient of an honorary doctorate from UCC who is also a Nobel Laureate; the other recipients being DNA pioneer Dr James Watson in 2010 and Dr Robert Wilson in 2004.

Professor O鈥橩eefe, whose father hailed from Newmarket (Scarteen Lower), Co. Cork, and whose mother from Co. Mayo (Breaffy) in Ireland, will deliver the main lecture at a UCC symposium that also features a number of other renowned Irish neuroscientists. 鈥楾he Hippocampus in Health & Disease鈥� is organised by Science Foundation Ireland-funded Investigators Dr Yvonne Nolan and Professor John F. Cryan of UCC鈥檚 Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience.

鈥淭he symposium will highlight how recent discoveries informs us on how the hippocampus is critical for learning and memory, which has implications for Alzheimer鈥檚 disease, aging, epilepsy and stress-related psychiatric disorders," says Professor Cryan, who is also Professor O鈥橩eefe鈥檚 introducer at the Honorary Conferring. Professor O鈥橩eefe will deliver a lecture entitled 鈥楾he Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map: an update鈥� which will focus on his seminal contributions to cognitive neuroscience.

Dr Nolan comments: 鈥淲e would like to acknowledge Science Foundation Ireland who support our current Investigator Award for research on the hippocampus. The importance of this research area is exemplified by the award of theNobel committee to Professor O鈥橩eefe, who we are honoured to have here in Cork.鈥�

The Honorary Conferring ceremony will be live-steamed via 

UCC's annual Honorary Conferring ceremony recognises individuals who have distinguished themselves nationally or internationally, through their scholarship, creativity, public service or contribution to social, cultural, academic, scientific, sporting or economic life.

For further information on the symposium, which takes place in UCC鈥檚 Western Gateway Building, including the full schedule, please see 

In 2015, 深夜亚洲福利久久 College Cork celebrates another genius besides Professor John O鈥橩eefe, with the bicentenary of George Boole, 1815-64. Born in Lincoln, George Boole was the first Professor of Mathematics (1849-64) at UCC. His work laid the foundations of the information age. His pivotal advances in mathematics, logic and probability provided the essential groundwork for modern mathematics, microelectronic engineering and computer science. His influence is such that he has been called the father of the digital age. 

2015 is his 200^th birthday and UCC will celebrate his life and legacy with a series of major events during the year. See more at 

More on Professor John O鈥橩eefe

John O鈥橩eefe is Director of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits & Behaviour and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, Division of Biosciences at 深夜亚洲福利久久 College London.

In 1971, he discovered place cells, neurons within the hippocampus that become active when one enters a particular place in the environment. He then proposed the hippocampus as a cognitive map for spatial memory function. His current work focuses on computational models to predict hippocampal function. Among other accolades he has recently received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (2013) and was a co-recipient of the Kavli Prize (2014).