James Olds
Neuroscience & Public Policy

I am a Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, where I teach courses on future governance, crisis management, and science policy. My work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, federal science administration, and the study of how institutions shape and are shaped by scientific knowledge.

From 2014 to 2018 I served as NSF Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, where I led NSF's role in President Obama's BRAIN Initiative and co-chaired the White House Life Sciences Subcommittee. Earlier in my career I conducted foundational research on cellular mechanisms of learning and memory using the marine mollusk Hermissenda crassicornis, publishing findings in Science in 1983 and 1989.

I currently serve as Chief Risk Officer on the NSF SAGE Grande Testbed project — a large-scale edge AI infrastructure initiative for environmental monitoring and wildfire detection.

• 2025
  How to Be a Science Ambassador Book

  Edward Elgar Publishing, August 2025
• 2024–
  Science Policy Insider Newsletter

  Substack · ~1,200 subscribers · bi-weekly
• 2005–16
  The Biological Bulletin Editor-in-Chief

  Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole · founded 1897
• 2003
  Partial reinforcement across trials impairs escape but spares place learning in the water maze

  Devan, Stouffer, Petri, McDonald & Olds · Behavioural Brain Research 141:91–104
• 2002
  Individual differences in stimulus control of place navigation and latent learning in the water maze

  Devan, Petri, Mishkin, Stouffer, Bowker, Yin, Buffalari & Olds · Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 78:79–99
• 1993
  Protein Kinase C: a nexus in the biochemical events that underlie associative learning

  Olds & Alkon · Journal of Neurochemistry
• 1991
  Protein Kinase C redistribution within CA3 stratum oriens during acquisition of nictitating membrane conditioning

  Scharenberg, Olds et al. · PNAS 88:6637–6641
• 1989
  Imaging of memory-specific changes in the distribution of Protein Kinase C in the hippocampus Research

  Olds, Anderson, McPhie, Staten & Alkon · Science 245:866–869

My scholarly record is indexed and verified on ORCID. The ORCID identifier uniquely distinguishes my work from other researchers.