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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
Easter Term Internal Symposium Program Announced
It is our pleasure to announce the programme for the 2009 Easter Term Gates Internal Symposium. Every term, the Internal subcommittee on the Gates Scholars’ Council organizes a symposium in which scholars have the opportunity to discuss their own research and interests with the wider scholar community in a friendly and informal setting. The 2009 […]
Distinguished Lecture Series: Rabbi Dr. Tvi Hersh Weinreb
Distinguished Lecture Series: Rabbi Dr. Tvi Hersh Weinreb “Can a creation-based religion be consistent with science and evolution?” A leading member of the Orthodox Union addresses whether a creation-based religion can be consistent with science and evolution at a lecture on 2nd February 2009. The talk at the Cambridge Union Society Debating Chamber by Rabbi […]
Distinguished Lecture Series: Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard
Distinguished Lecture Series: Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard “Cambridge and the Environment” Professor Alison Richard was installed as the 344th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 2003. The Vice-Chancellor is the principal academic and administrative officer of the University, and Professor Richard is the first woman to hold the position full-time. An anthropologist with a first […]
Distinguished Lecture Series: Ms Cathy Grieve
Distinguished Lecture Series: Ms Cathy Grieve “A Changing Media World” Ms Grieve, a highly distinguished journalist, served as the Ireland producer for BBC News during much of the 1990s and helped create BBC News Online/Interactive. Among her many accolades, she has been recognized with the Royal Television Society Award for her coverage of the […]
Gates Scholars win Lowry Prize in consecutive terms
An update on our most recent news story. Congratulations are now due to both Vijay Kanuru, who won the prestigious Lowry Prize in the Department of Chemistry in Michaelmas Term, and Rachel Pike, who has won it in Lent Term. The prize is awarded for the best graduate seminar in physical chemistry. The prize is […]
New 2009 Gates Scholars anounced
The Trust is delighted to announce that 90 Gates Cambridge Scholarships have been awarded to outstanding young men and women from 32 countries to pursue graduate study and research at the University of Cambridge from October 2009. Full details are available New Scholars 2009 page.
Gates Virtual Coffeehouse on Youth Social Entrepreneurship – 23 May 2009
5:00 – 6:15 PM BST/ 12:00 – 1:15 PM EST/ 9:00 – 10:15 AM PST Panelist Bios Registration This conference is free and open to the public. Synopsis Increasingly, youth around the world are taking it upon themselves to engage social challenges and effect positive community change. A new generation of socially responsible ventures […]
Gates Distinguished Lecture, Wednesday 29 April
To start the Easter Term Gates Distinguished Lecture Series, Sir Richard Dearlove will talk on Wednesday 29 April on ‘A 21st Century View of National Security’. Sir Richard is Master of Pembroke College, and former Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). A graduate of Queens’ College, Cambridge, he began his tenure with MI6 […]
Gates Cambridge Trust 10th Anniversary
The year 2010 is the tenth anniversary of the Gates Cambridge Trust. An important milestone, to be marked by a weekend of celebration in Cambridge for Gates scholars and alumni, from Friday 2 to Sunday 4 July. Since the first cohort of Gates Scholars arrived in Cambridge in October 2001, the Gates community both within […]
Distinguished Lecture Series: Dr. James Nataro
Distinguished Lecture Series: Dr. James Nataro “Vaccine Development in the Year 2100” Cambridge University Communications Office: Vaccines could eventually be developed which could prevent the deaths hundreds of thousands of children a year from diarrhoea, according to an international expert in infectious disease. Dr James P Nataro, a major researcher in vaccine development and […]
