William E. Skaggs

William E. Skaggs was an American neuroscientist. He is noted for his work on the functioning of the hippocampus.

Education
Skaggs obtained his PhD in 1995 under the direction of Bruce McNaughton at the University of Arizona.

Scholarship
Skaggs was a faculty member at the University of California, Davis, where he conducted research on neurophysiology in primates, often using computational neuroscience. He was noted particularly for his elucidation of the role of theta waves in the function of the hippocampus, via their role in phase precession and firing replay. This work led to a greater understanding of memory, learning, and navigation through space.

He was also a science writer who helped popularize scientific concepts for a general audience. In this role, he was an editor at Wikipedia, under the name Looie496.

A special issue of the journal Behavioral Neuroscience was dedicated to Skaggs in 2020, noting that he had died from a heart attack.

Publications
Google Scholar lists more than 40 publications that, together, have been cited over 10,000 times (three of them over 1000 times each), giving Skaggs an h-index of 26. His most-cited papers are:
 * 1) (>1800 citations)
 * 2) (>1300 citations)
 * 3) (>1000 citations)