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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
Data science with a social mission
Diana Pirjol [2011], did her MPhil in Public Health and is now Executive Director of the Human Data Insight (HDI) Group, a next generation of data analytics and data science company with a social mission to provide organisations with affordable and high quality consulting services and support the development of next generation social entrepreneurs. She […]
From Plant Sciences to biotech start-ups
From an early age, Vaibhav Bhardwaj [2012] was taught the value of attention to detail and of using every opportunity to learn more about how the world works. His Biology teacher at secondary school would regularly say to him ‘you cannot commit to memory what you do not understand.’ It’s an approach that has stood […]
Closing gender gaps for good
How has Covid affected gender equality and what can we do to bridge the widening gap? On Tuesday three outstanding scholars in the area and Anita Zaidi, president of the Gates Foundation’s Gender Equality Division, spoke at Closing Gaps for Good: Ensuring Equitable Recovery in a Post-Pandemic World, a panel discussion organised to celebrate the […]
First spaceflight for Gates Cambridge Scholar
Gates Cambridge Scholar Kayla Barron will make her first spaceflight later this year after NASA announced that it has assigned her to serve as a mission specialist for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station. The mission is due to launch on October 23rd. Kayla became a NASA astronaut in January 2020 […]
Weekend of Research 2021 focuses on major global challenges
Thirteen Gates Cambridge Scholars at the annual Gates Cambridge Weekend of Research in early May took part in panel discussions on the environment and migration, global justice and democracy and Artificial Intelligence and technology. The subjects covered ranged from legacies of oppression and revolution in Myanmar to a call to radically scale down gold mining. […]
New app aims to help women through the menopause
A new app which helps women to manage the menopause was soft launched last month in collaboration with Mumsnet. Stella is the first product by Vira Health, a company which was co-founded in 2019 by Gates Cambridge Scholar Rebecca Love. Stella offers women relief from the most common symptoms of menopause, including sleep disturbances, hot […]
A global perspective on gender and health
The middle of a global pandemic may not seem the ideal time to move country with a new baby, but Johanna Riha [2011] took up her new role as a research fellow at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) in Malaysia during the pandemic and moved to Kuala Lumpur around a […]
Scholars share 2021 Bill Gates Sr. Prize
Two Gates Cambridge Scholars are sharing the 2021 Bill Gates Sr. Prize in recognition of their outstanding research and social leadership. Emma Soneson and Maša Josipović have been selected for the prize which was established by the Gates Cambridge Trustees in June 2012 in recognition of the late Bill Gates Sr.’s role in establishing the […]
The censoring effect of populist anti-media messages
Populist attacks on the press should be viewed as a form of soft censorship which uses journalistic norms regarding objectivity to undermine the media, according to a new study by a Gates Cambridge Scholar. The study, Covering populist media criticism: When journalists’ professional norms turn against them, by Ayala Panievsky, is published in the International […]
An existential detective novel
Amanda Dennis‘ first novel Her Here, published in March, tells the story of Elena, who has lost her mother and is suffering from memory loss caused by the trauma of finding her dead. She is asked by her mother’s friend to search for her daughter Ella, who went missing in Thailand six years earlier, through […]
