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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
The politics of healthy eating
Sarah Mummah was just an undergraduate when she set up her own non-profit tutoring and mentoring organisation and has built it up into an award-winning project with a team of over 30 undergraduates at its command. DreamCatchers aims to tackle the academic resources gap faced by poorer children in the Palo Alto area of California. […]
Fuelled by algae
Research which could bring forward the prospect of commercial-scale growing of algae as an alternative to petroleum products has been published in the Journal of Rheology. Global concerns about rapidly depleting oil reserves, fluctuations in oil prices, the potential for environmental deterioration and global warming as a result of the release of carbon dioxide into […]
Different perspectives
Sean Collins is used to straddling different cultures and disciplines. As a young boy he grew up in Germany, but moved to a German school in the US where the students spoke a hybrid English/German language to each other. At university he did a double major in chemistry and piano, combining research on renewable energy […]
Scholar scoops ABTA award
Gates scholar Molly Fox has won a prestigious doctoral research award from the Association of British Turkish Academics. She won first place in the category of Biological and Medical Sciences for her research on the evolution of human longevity and a £600 cheque. The awards were presented at a ceremony at University College London’s Gustave Tuck […]
The evolution of genetic variation
One-letter switches in the DNA code occur much more frequently in human genomes than anticipated, but are often only found in one or a few individuals, according to new research published in the online edition of Science. Researchers, including Gates alumnus Timothy O’Connor, found that the explosion in human population over the last 5,000 years […]
The ethical brain
Gates Cambridge alumna Molly Crockett is taking part in a BBC World Service programme airing this Saturday on the degree to which our moral beliefs are shaped by our neurochemistry and our environment. In the Discovery programme airing on Saturday at 19:32 on BBC World Service, Dr Carinne Piekema talks to scientists, including Molly Crockett [2006] […]
The right to a good death
Liz Dzeng was working in a US hospital taking care of an 86-year-old woman dying of metastatic cancer. In line with the US health system, Liz, a doctor specialising in internal medicine, had to get permission from the woman’s husband about whether or not to resuscitate her if her heart stopped. Her husband, however, was […]
Rallying call for global health
The editor-in-chief of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet used his Gates Distinguished Lecture to issue a rallying call for scientists to work together to tackle insidious world problems, from infectious diseases to global warming. Dr Richard Horton gave his lecture, entitled Global health is dead. Long live Global health, on 14th May. He announced […]
Scholars tell their stories
A trip in a dugout canoe to investigate the impact of fishing on a Pacific ecosystem, crossing country and subject borders, riding the rails with a “hobo” and volunteering at the Olympics all form part of an evening of Gates Cambridge Scholars Stories. The Scholar Stories session takes place at 7pm on 16th May in […]
From PhD thesis to a crime novel
Jakub Szamalek’s first book was published to acclaim last year and he is now working on a second. Although he is completing his PhD in Classics focusing on the relations between the Greeks and the indigenous peoples inhabiting the Black Sea region, his book – in Polish – is not an academic treatise. Instead Jakub […]
