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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
A dream of collaboration
A Gates Cambridge Alumnus has been given a visiting professorship to teach a course on Human Computer Interaction at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi which he hopes will lead to a long-term collaboration between Cambridge and the Institute. Pradipta Biswas [2006], a Research Associate at the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Cambridge, […]
The power of language
Kate Crowcroft [2011] is fascinated by language. A poet, she is beginning a PhD in English focusing on the reception of the Middle Ages in English Renaissance texts and the evolution of theological ideas about language and speech during this period. The research continues the theme of her MPhil when she studied how Protestant writers […]
Drones create ‘world’s largest prison’
The US Government’s portrayal of the use of drones in Pakistan as a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling “targeted killing” of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts is false, according to a major new study which has been co-authored by a Gates Cambridge Alumna. The report, Living […]
Gates Cambridge ambassadors spread the word
A record number of Gates Cambridge Alumni are visiting universities around the world to spread the word about what it means to be a Gates Cambridge Scholar.Between the summer and April 2013 29 Alumni will visit 38 universities from the California Institute of Technology to Canterbury University, New Zealand, to talk to students about the […]
Understanding the experience of illness
How do patients’ experiences of their illness affect how they respond to treatment? How do they make sense of life-altering conditions like cancer?Ian Hsubelieves it is vital for doctors to understand the way patients respond to illness in order to improve their experience of it.A trainee medic, his interest in medical anthropology stems in part […]
Quantum prize
A Gates Cambridge alumnus has been awarded a prestigious National Research Council Research Associateship at the US Navy Research Laboratory in Washington DC.The Award for Peter Brereton [2001] is for a postdoctoral fellowship for up to three years. He will be working in the Electronic Materials Branch researching fundamental quantum optical processes in semiconductor nanostructures.The […]
First annual career symposium launched
Prominent Gates Cambridge alumni will be speaking about their experiences after Cambridge at the first annual Gates Cambridge Alumni Career Symposium in October.The Symposium will be held in the Gates Cambridge Common Room on 20 October and is open to all Scholars and Alumni.Speaking at the half-day events are:David Deitz [2006], who did an MPhil […]
A greener society
Anthony Lamb had spent most of his adult life studying science and working in finance when he decided to take time out of his finance job in 2010. He spent the next year or so reflecting on what he wanted to do. He loved the outdoors life and spent a month canoeing on his own […]
Redeveloped Scholars’ Room opened
The Gates Cambridge Scholars’ Common Room at the University Centre has played an integral part in creating a Gates Cambridge community for Scholars in residence. Generations of Scholars have used the room as a hub for a wide variety of activities, and enjoyed the sweeping views across the Mill Pond area. The room underwent a […]
Transition to democracy
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded first prize for the best student contribution at the Historical Association of South Africa’s biennial conference. Danelle van Zyl-Hermann [2010] was awarded the prize for a paper she presented at the conference in Pretoria about a part of the PhD research she is conducting at Cambridge. The Historical […]
