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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
Scientists discover pathways to liver disease
An international team of scientists that included Gates Cambridge Scholar Siddhartha Kar has shed new light on the genetic underpinnings of the most common autoimmune disease of the liver, which causes scarring and cirrhosis and can require a liver transplant. Primary biliary cirrhosis or PBC is a disease in which the body’s own immune defence […]
Gates Cambridge and Gates Foundation host joint event
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Gates Cambridge hosted a joint event in London last night to celebrate the role of philanthropy in meeting the challenges of the 21st century. The event at the Institute of Directors was attended by 70 Gates Cambridge Scholars and Alumni from more than 25 countries as well as […]
Intelligence redefined
Gifted and talented programmes should be opened up to a wider group of children and they should be allowed multiple chances to qualify, according to a new book by a Gates Cambridge alumnus. Ungifted: intelligence redefined by Scott Barry Kaufman [2003] is published in June. The book sets out to prove traditional metrics wrong, questioning […]
Battling computer error
Disasters caused by computer error – such as the explosion of the Arianne 5 rocket in 1996 – will soon be a thing of history, according to Steffen Loesch. Steffen [2009], a PhD candidate in Computer Science, says: “We increasingly rely on computer programs so it is becoming absolutely critical that we are sure that […]
39 new US Scholars selected
Thirty-nine new US Gates Cambridge Scholars have been selected as the programme continues to expand. This year 12 new US universities are represented, including public and private institutions ranging from liberal arts colleges to research universities. This brings the number of US institutions who have had Gates Cambridge Scholars to 183. The 12 institutions are: […]
Handbook for e-accessibility
A handbook which aims to help researchers and practitioners make it easier for elderly and disabled people to use interactive services like subtitling and audio cassette versions of books has been edited by a Gates Cambridge alumnus. Pradipta Biswas [2006] is first editor of the book A multimodal end-2-end approach to accessible computing, published by […]
Food from waste
How can we boost agricultural output in an affordable and safe way and benefit urban and peripheral communities in developing countries? For Luca Di Mario [2009], water sanitation is the key. He is doing his PhD at the Centre for Sustainable Development (Engineering Department) and is looking to find sustainable business models for scaling up […]
Mapping the history of climate change
Did the Harappan civilisation, the largest ancient civilisation in the world, die out after an extreme climate event? Gates Cambridge Scholar Yama Dixit [2009] has been conducting research on lake sediments from three lakes in north west India to see whether climate change played a role. “What we want to do is to understand if […]
What can computers tell us about love?
What can computers tell us about love? What does being an ‘intellectual’ mean? What are the origins of human tool use and how can a lasting peace be built in Sri Lanka? All these questions will be addressed at the first Gates Cambridge internal symposium of the term on Monday. The symposium, which runs from […]
Change through enterprise
Timothy Kotin is not only studying sustainable development – he has set up his own company aimed at changing things on the ground. For Timothy, academic work and social entrepreneurship go hand in hand, and he is anxious to make positive changes in Ghana, his home country. He is studying for an MPhil in Engineering […]
