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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
Mixing trade and public health
A recent World Trade Organisation ruling on a US ban on clove cigarettes shows the international body is not best placed to adjudicate on public health issues, according to an article by Gates Cambridge scholar Todd Tucker. The article, One of these things is not like the other: likeness and detrimental impacts in US-clove cigarettes, […]
Tomorrow’s news
How do you make online journalism economically viable? It’s one of the biggest issues in journalism today as more and more newspapers migrate online and it’s one that Gates Cambridge Scholar Andrew Gruen will address at a major journalism conference next month. Gruen [2008], who is doing a PhD in Social and Political Science, will […]
Education for peace
Sara Habibi was working on a peace education programme in Bosnia just over a decade ago. On one occasion, she was assisting a training event in Travnik/Nova Bila designed to bring the very divided Croat and Bosniak communities together. Days before the event a Croat mother of three children died and the training had to […]
The future of biodiversity?
India’s approach to biodiversity could be a model for other countries around the world, according to a new United Nations Development Programme report co-authored by a Gates Cambridge Alumnus. The UNDP report ‘Conservation Across Landscapes: India’s Approaches to Bio-diversity Governance’, co-authored by Sushil Saigal [2006], calls for a “landscape approach” to biodiversity governance which allows […]
Bringing history to life
An 18th century Irish church which became a walled graveyard has been restored by a team led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Richard Butler [2012], who is doing a PhD in the history of art, was project supervisor for the restoration of Garryvurcha Church and graveyard in the small town of Bantry in County Cork […]
Fish oil wards off strokes
Eating at least two servings of oily fish a week can significantly reduce the risk of stroke, but taking fish oil supplements has no similar effect, according to a study co-led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar. The study, led by Gates Cambridge Scholar Dr Rajiv Chowdhury [2009] and Professor Oscar H. Franco at Erasmus MC […]
The ageing eyewitness
A Gates Cambridge Scholar who is studying eyewitness psychology has won The Manuel Lopez-Rey Prize for her MPhil in criminological research. Katrin Pfeil [2012], who has just begun her PhD, shares the prize with a criminology student. It is awarded by the Department of Criminology at the University of Cambridge for outstanding performance. Her research […]
Scholars tell their stories
Church restoration, choral music in primary school education, improving education and health outcomes for lower income children and a summer camp for children whose parents have cancer are the subjects of the latest session of Scholars’ Stories this week. The event, which aims to show a personal side of what inspires individual Gates Cambridge Scholars, […]
Small bird, big ambitions?
A Gates Cambridge Alumna has won a prestigious National Geographic Society grant to help her study a bird species which has developed innovative ways to find food despite having a relatively small brain. Corina Logan has been awarded a $14,172 Waitt Grant from the National Geographic Society. The grant for early years researchers funds projects […]
Breaking the cycle of crime
Why do children with criminal parents have a higher risk of committing crime? A Gates Cambridge Alumna has just published a book which seeks to answer a question which could have implications for the way the UK and other countries tackle crime. The book, Intergenerational Transmission of Criminal and Violent Behaviour, is based on Sytske […]
