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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
Gender under the microscope
Since she returned to Hong Kong after completing her PhD in Psychology at Cambridge, Wang Ivy Wong [2009] has been promoted to the role of Associate Professor at the Gender Studies Programme and Department of Psychology of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has her own gender development laboratory and collaborates on research with international […]
Net zero climate targets cover more than half of Americans
More than half of Americans [53%] live in a jurisdiction with a net zero target, according to new research which says subnational commitments represent an opportunity for the Biden-Harris Administration and Congress to increase federal action on climate change. The research is co-authored by Gates Cambridge Scholar Stephen Lezak, who is currently Programme Manager on […]
Investigating the science of waking up
Do you wake up feeling refreshed and full of energy? That’s the traditional depiction of a good night’s sleep, but for many it is not the case. In the first minutes or hours after waking up, they feel groggy and lethargic. This grogginess is called “sleep inertia” and a new study, led by a Gates […]
Putting students at the centre of enterprise
When Noah Isserman was born his late father, an urban planning professor, wrote a paper in which he said: “We must be concerned with what is humanly possible, not just politically and economically possible.” Years later Noah included the quote in his PhD dissertation at Cambridge. An ambition to make a difference is at the […]
Undoing the erasure of Black women’s lives
Anna Malaika Tubbs always wanted to be a public intellectual – to speak up for Black women whose lives have been erased from public view and to talk to the general public about gender, race, sociology and anthropology in ways that are accessible. Having been a student activist and having taught black feminist theory to […]
Review highlights advances in study of early human development
Pluripotent stem cells-based models serve as an excellent tool to study early human development, given that legislation forbids using human embryos to do so, according to a review. The review, published in the journal Developmental Biology, is co-authored by Gates Cambridge Scholar Veronika Mantziou [2019], who is doing a PhD in Developmental Biology. The study, […]
Research reveals psychological ‘signature’ for the extremist mind
Researchers have mapped an underlying “psychological signature” for people who are predisposed to holding extreme social, political or religious attitudes and support violence in the name of ideology. A new study, led by Gates Cambridge Alumna Dr Leor Zmigrod [2016], suggests that a particular mix of personality traits and unconscious cognition – the ways our […]
Investigating the factors that make cell condensates stable
Like the British Library with its 170 million specimens, the interior of a cell contains a myriad of different proteins and other biomolecules that need to be carefully catalogued in order for the cell to function correctly. Apart from the nucleus and other well-known cellular compartments that catalogue groups of proteins by enclosing them with […]
Small impact of public private partnership schools on public school enrollment
Placing a public private partnership school near a public school has a relatively minor impact on public school enrollment, according to a new study carried out in Pakistan. Pakistan has the second highest number of out of school children between the ages of five and 16 in the world. In the province of Punjab, Pakistan’s […]
21st Century Body Politics
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded a fellowship to produce a podcast series on 21st century body politics. Ronja Griep has been awarded a Cambridge Centre for International Research grant to produce a six-episode podcast series which showcases research on body politics to a wider public and current school pupils considering university. Ronja, who […]
