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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
New study focuses on role of serotonin in adapting to new environments
Lowering serotonin levels in humans impairs their ability to adapt their emotions and behaviour to changing environments which could have important implications for mental health issues and their treatment, according to a new study. The study, led by Jonathan Kanen [2015], is published in the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry. It is his third first author […]
Designing a VR cockpit for India’s space mission
A Gates Cambridge Scholar will be principal investigator in the design of a virtual reality cockpit for India’s maiden human space flight mission. Pradipta Biswas is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing the Indian Institute of Science which has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Space Research Organisation to design the cockpit. The first Indian crewed mission was originally planned […]
Ed-tech wins Gates Foundation funding for access work
An ed-tech non-profit co-founded by a Gates Cambridge Scholar has received a $980,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop its free college affordability tool. Moneythink, co-founded by Greg Nance who is also its Board Chair, says the money will help it to accelerate the development and reach of DecidED, its free […]
Gates Cambridge: a purposeful community
As the Gates Cambridge Scholarship reaches the end of its 20th anniversary year, its alumni association is holding an event late this month which celebrates some of the factors that have shaped the scholar community. That sense of community, of a global network of leaders, developed and owned by the scholars and alumni themselves, is […]
Fibre optic project aims to improve Sri Lanka’s infrastructure
A Gates Cambridge Alumnus has formed a partnership between his university, Cambridge and Oxford universities and a local engineering company to introduce a cutting-edge technology to Sri Lanka. A team of researchers and industry experts from the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka, the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC), the University of […]
Building an energy revolution
Context matters when it comes to the transition to renewable energy and researchers need to work with local people on the ground to ensure that associated technologies work better, a Cambridge Alumni Festival heard at the weekend. The Building an energy revolution discussion put the spotlight on the energy transition from fossil fuel needed to […]
20 for 20: Gates Cambridge celebrates its 20th anniversary
Between 2020 and 2021 we have been celebrating the 20th anniversary of Gates Cambridge with a number of special events on everything from climate change to gender, an anniversary edition of The Scholar magazine and much more. Alongside that we have been running a series of profiles of scholars and alumni, one from each year […]
What motivates electric vehicle drivers?
As the UK faces petrol and diesel shortages, a new study led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar outlines the kind of policies that are needed to drive higher uptake of electric vehicles. The study is published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews today and is one of the few to catalogue the views of those […]
Beyond the limits in astronomical research
Arnab Sarkar’s PhD research, which he starts this autumn, will review the Nobel prize-winning research of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar into white dwarfs – very dense and small ‘corpses’ of stars that are typically the volume of a planet like Earth while having a mass that is comparable to the Sun. Chandrasekhar showed that the mass of […]
Power politics and big tech
Alina Utrata’s family is very embedded in Silicon Valley and Alina grew up amid the Silicon Valley boom. Many of her school friends have gone on to take up jobs in tech companies and she has had a ringside seat at the rise of the tech giants. “I’ve watched my hometown in the San Francisco […]
