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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
Uncovering the ancient history of the gateway to the Pacific
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has designed a website that showcases an archaeological project in the Raja Ampat Islands of West Papua which has unearthed new material revealing how its ancient human inhabitants lived. Dylan Gaffney [2017], who is doing a PhD in Archaeology, has written and designed the website on the Raja Ampat Archaeological Project which documents some of the first […]
Alumna leads international consortium for smallholders in Colombia
A Gates Cambridge alumna is leading an international consortium in a £391k pilot project to help smallholders in Colombia, including many women farmers, to improve their marketing channels and get their crops to market. Dr Jacqui Poon’s start-up Farming Data Ltd provides a digital trading platform which is linked to an SMS, voice message and smartphone app. The […]
Towards ending hunger in Africa
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won new funding to further develop her impressive research training programme for African scientists and has been selected as runner-up for a prestigious Government award for impact writing. Carol Ibe has been awarded competitive funding by the Global Challenges Research Funds to further develop her education non-profit the JR Biotek Foundation in terms of research training and […]
Commitment to inclusive practice
Harum Mukhayer has been commended for her outstanding contribution to college and university life. Harum [2016], who is doing a PhD in Law, was Highly Commended for her outstanding contribution to Inclusive Practice in the Outstanding Student Contribution to Education Award selected by the Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning. Harum was recognised for a range […]
Decolonising colonial boundaries
Rumbidzai Dube has had over a decade of experience as a human rights lawyer, promoting women’s rights, defending fundamental freedoms, observing elections, monitoring gender-based violence, advocating state accountability and facilitating law reform across the African continent. Through her work, she has lived in Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa, the Gambia and Zimbabwe, her home country. Her career […]
National Youth Award for Gates Cambridge Scholar
Gates Cambridge Scholar Krittika D’Silva has been selected for the Youth Award at this year’s Royal Bank of Canada Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards. The award recognises the contributions of an outstanding young Canadian immigrant aged between 16 and 29 and was presented at a ceremony in Vancouver on 4th July. The awards programme is presented by Canadian […]
Democratising social science
Cristian Larroulet Philippi [2019] is interested in broadening the reach of the social sciences and ensuring they engage with the society around them rather than with scientific abstractions. That approach, he believes, will lead to both better science and better policy. From the moment he started his undergraduate degree in economics Cristian felt that certain […]
A step forward in combatting pancreatic cancer
Research into how cancer cells destroy their own mitochondria could offer a promising new target for pancreatic cancer therapies, according to a new study. The study is co-led by Gates Cambridge Scholar Dr Tim Humpton and published in the journal Cancer Discovery. The research, which is part of a long-running collaboration between Dr Humpton at the CRUK Beatson […]
Scholar speaks at sex workers’ rights event
Gates Cambridge Scholar Sharmila Parmanand spoke about the struggles of the sex worker rights movement in the Philippines at a Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) in Bangkok last week. Sharmila [2016], who is doing a PhD in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies, was one of three speakers at the Rights, Rescue and Resistance: Gains and challenges in the global […]
Fighting infection in Indonesia
The problem of antibiotic resistance is a global one, forecast to cause up to 10 million deaths a year in the near future. In Indonesia efforts to stop its progress are hampered by a lack of research in biomedicine, the absence of a centralised medical record system for healthcare providers and the fact that people can get […]
