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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
Gates Scholar Wins Darwin Correspondence Project Essay Prize
Congratulations to Kathryn Tabb on winning the Darwin Correspondence Project essay prize for her essay ‘Darwin at Orchis Bank’. The competition, which was open to students from all disciplines and stages of education, forms part of an initiative on Darwin and religion started by the Correspondence Project in 2007. Kathryn has just completed her MPhil […]
Pan-scholarship Symposium on Leadership for Positive Change
The first ever pan-scholarship Symposium, organised by Gates Scholars on 23 June this year, was such a success that it is set to become an annual fixture. The event, entitled ‘Leadership for Positive Change’, brought together 60 students from Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall, NIH and Gates scholarship programmes. Participants engaged in presentations and discussions about leadership […]
Gates Scholar paper published in Science Magazine
Congratulations to Gates Scholar Molly Crockett (2006 entry) for co-authoring a paper on how diet effects decision making, which has been published in Science. Molly, who is based at the department of Experimental Psychology, has co-written the study with Professor Trevor Robbins. For more information on this paper, please see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/06/05/scifull105.xml http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2008/06/05/serotonin-levels-determine-sense-of-fairness.html
Gates Scholar awarded Junior Research Fellowship at Clare College
Congratulations to former Gates Scholar, Dr Colin Russell (2002 – 2006), on being awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge. Colin, who is at the department of Zoology, has recently co-written a paper that was published in Science magazine.
Gates Scholar Wins Prize From Prestigious Law Journal
Congratulations to Gates Scholar Kofi Boakye for winning the 2008 Law and Social Inquiry Graduate Student Paper Competition with his paper Factors Contributing to the Underreporting of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in Ghana: An Exploratory Study.
Gates Scholar Entrepeneurs Fight Tuberculosis
Gates Scholars Christopher Rumball and Kelly Karns recently returned from Houston, Texas, where they competed in the Rice Business Plan Competition in the hopes of finding investment for their newly-formed company, AutoTB. A MoneyCNN.com article features the Cambridge team in a roundup of the prestigious competition’s competitors. Thirty-six of the top MBA/graduate schools from around […]
Gates Scholars wins Young Scientist Award
Congratulations to Gates Scholar Vijay Kanuru who has won a prestigious Young Scientist Award from the Council of the International Association of Catalysis Societies (IACS). He will be presented with his award at the 14th International Congress on Catalysis in Seoul, Korea in July 2008. http://www.iacs-icc.org/index.html http://www.icc2008korea.com/congress03.asp
Gates Scholar paper published on global origins of new influenza viruses
Congratulations to former Gates Scholar Dr Colin Russell (2002 – 2006) of the Department of Zoology, Cambridge University, who has co-penned a paper which has been published in Science magazine. The article has also been published in various languages in a variety of countries. The article can be viewed at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/320/5874/340
Distinguished Lecture Series Review: Peter Nolan
On March 12, 2008, professor Peter Nolan gave a talk at the Gates Common room in Cambridge University as a part of the Gates Distinguished Lecture Series. Professor Nolan’s talk covered a range of topics and sparked wide interest among the 50 attendees in the packed common room. 2007 Gates Scholar James Zou was in […]
Gates Scholar wins Soros Fellowship
KRISHNAN SUBRAHMANIAN is currently Border State Director of Obama for America, supplementing field efforts for the presidential campaign. He has deferred matriculation at Stanford’s Medical School until the Fall of 2008. As an undergraduate at Harvard, he was elected President and first class Marshal of the class of 2003. He graduated magna cum laude with […]
