Scott Waddell, Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Oxford, has attracted international recognition for his pioneering research into how dopaminergic neural circuit mechanisms control memory and motivation. He uncovered the structure and function of circuits encoding reward and punishment in the fly brain. Subsequent studies in the mouse show his leading discoveries in the fly represent evolutionarily conserved mechanisms that exist in the brains of mammals. His cutting-edge cellular-resolution discoveries of neural network mechanisms therefore have potential application across a wide-range of neurological conditions including amnesia, Alzheimer’s Disease, dementia, addiction, impulsive behaviour, and disorders of mood, movement and feeding.