James V. McConnell

James Vernon McConnell (October 26, 1925–April 9, 1990) was an American biologist and animal psychologist whose work explored how animals learn and where memory might be stored. He is best known for controversial experiments with planarians, or flatworms, that investigated whether learned behavior—and perhaps memory—could be transferred between animals.

McConnell spent much of his academic career at the University of Michigan, where he became a professor in 1963 and remained until his retirement in 1988. His research attracted broad public attention and helped spark debates about the biological basis of memory.

He was also an inventive science communicator. McConnell founded the Worm Runner’s Digest, a journal that combined planarian research with satire, and he published several short science-fiction stories during the 1950s.