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Benjamin Cocanougher
- Alumni
- United States
- 2016 PhD Zoology
- St Catharine's College
I grew up catching praying mantises and damselflies in rural Kentucky. As an undergraduate at Centre College, I majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; I spent my summers taking care of sick children at the Center for Courageous Kids and doing research in organic chemistry and neuroscience. I matriculated directly to the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and completed my first three years of medical school. I then moved to Janelia Research Campus as a HHMI Medical Research Fellow; there I studied the neural and genetic bases of behavior. As a PhD student in Zoology, I will study adaptive behavior. All animals integrate information about past experience into future decisions; this is the basis of learning and memory. I am proposing to write a specific memory and read the memory trace in the brain. I will use the fruit fly as a model organism. By understanding mechanisms of memory storage, we can begin to investigate changes in memory formation in disease; this may allow us to develop rational therapies for disorders of memory formation, including autism and Alzheimer’s disease. After completing my PhD, I will return to finish my last year of medical school and pursue a career as a child neurologist and neuroscientist, using my lab to better understand the patients I see in clinic.
Previous Education
Centre College
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Latest News
Democracy in practice
What is the relationship between political parties and African voters and how does this affect democracy? Zenobia Ismail has worked on issues relating to governance and democracy in Africa for several years as a former manager of Afrobarometer which conducts surveys across sub-Saharan Africa. She is now about to begin a PhD in Politics and […]
Alumnus wins cybersecurity award
A Gates Cambridge alumnus has been awarded the prestigious National Security Agency Award for Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper of 2012 for research he conducted for his PhD. Joseph Bonneau’s winning paper is entitled “The Science of Guessing: Analysing an Anonymised Corpus of 70 Million Passwords”. The NSA, the central producer and manager of signals intelligence […]
Tackling toxoplasmosis
Bo Shiun Lai experienced something most scientists take years to achieve – publication of his research in a leading journal – when he was still an undergraduate. His research on toxoplasmosis was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. He was nominated for the Cozzarelli Prize, a national award for scientific excellence […]
Aid reversed
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Worm phenotypes identified
Research led by a Gates Cambridge alumnus has identified behavioural functions for a huge range of genes which are a key resource for neuroscience research. The research which is led by Eviatar Yemini [2007] and published in Nature Methods creates the largest current database of phenotypes for the nematode worm, C. elegans, a major experimental […]
Healthy tv
A Gates alumnus has contributed to a Department of Health Report on Assistive Technology which was presented to the UK Parliament this month. Pradipta Biswas wrote a section of the report on smart TV and its uses for healthcare. Pradipta’s research focuses on improving access to online services, including digital TV, for the many older […]
After the revolution
How has the Arab Spring influenced Egyptian society at an everyday level? Maha Shash is interested in the impact social change, international events and political ideas have on patterns of consumption and how the Egyptian experience compares with other cases in history. She will be one of the first Gates Cambridge Scholars for Egypt when […]
Playing to win
A book by Gates Cambridge alumna Hilary Levey Friedman on the pressure on young American children to do competitive afterschool activities is already getting major press attention although it is not due out until September. Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture follows the path of primary school-age children involved in competitive dance, […]
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When she started her academic career, Yanna Antypas [2004] was fascinated by optics and the idea of seeing things with new eyes. This search for novel approaches has taken her from a PhD in Materials Science and Metallurgy to modelling climate policy designs at the US Department of Energy. The Gates experience, she says, played […]
From cocktail waiter to Cambridge
Justin Park dropped out of school at the age of 16 to be a poet, but is now heading to the University of Cambridge to study Anglo Saxon and Norse with the aid of a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. From this autumn Justin [2013], now 36, will study for an MPhil in Anglo Saxon, Norse and […]
