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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
Understanding the adolescent brain
A new study published today and led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar highlights how new brain networks come ‘online’ during adolescence, allowing teenagers to develop more complex adult social skills, but putting them at increased risk of mental illness. František Váša [2014] is lead author of the study which is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of […]
Enabling a green economy
A Gates Cambridge alumnus and energy expert has won a Fulbright Scholarship to study how blockchain technology can improve supply networks for technology minerals to speed the transition to a green global economy. Rob Perrons [2001], who did his PhD in Engineering at Cambridge, will take up his scholarship later this year and will be working […]
Aiming for the Moon
Kayla Barron has been a pioneer throughout her working life. One of the first class of women commissioned into the US Navy’s submarine community, she is now a graduate of NASA’s astronaut training programme and could become one of the first women to set foot on the Moon. In December Kayla [2010] finished her training […]
Family life as a scholar
When Iryna Shuvalova [2016] did her master’s in the US she couldn’t bring her daughter with her. That on its own was hard, but during Iryna’s time in the US the Ukrainan revolution started and Russia invaded Crimea. “I was constantly worrying, sitting on my suitcases and ready to go at any point.” Fortunately, her […]
Online game helps players to spot fake news
Gates Cambridge Scholar Melisa Basol is first author on a paper which shows that online fake news can be countered successfully using a game which teaches people about misinformation techniques. Bad News is an online choice-based game that encourages the players to walk in the shoes of a “fake news tycoon”. Players learn about the six most […]
Giving back at work and in society
Rob Rivers has always had a strong desire to give back and that fits well with his time at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and with his role in the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association. Now he not only heads the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases’ STEP-UP programme […]
Towards a better, more global approach to traumatic brain injury
In 2014 Hafsa Durrani tragically lost both of her brothers in a terrorist attack at Army Public School and College in Peshawar, where the terrorists executed 148 people in the school’s auditorium – 132 students, all the teachers, a lab assistant, a guard and the principal. Five years on, Hafsa, who is from a Pashtoon […]
Understanding exoplanets
The most extensive survey of atmospheric chemical compositions of exoplanets to date has revealed trends that challenge current theories of planet formation and has implications for the search for water in the solar system and beyond. A team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and including Gates Cambridge Scholar Luis Welbanks [2017], used atmospheric data […]
Putting local communities at the centre of conservation projects
Onon Bayasgalan’s life has come full circle. As a child she went to primary school in Cambridge and now she is back to do her MPhil in Conservation Leadership. “It feels like I am closing a loop, going back to Cambridge and also because my father did his PhD there. It is very poetic,” she […]
Tracing the philosophical underpinnings of modern Spain
Three Gates Cambridge Scholars – two alumni and one current scholar – joined together for a unique seminar panel to discuss the influence of the 19th century German philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause on Spanish intellectuals. The panel, held in November, was part of the Spanish Intellectuals from Krause to Post-War Britain seminar series, co-convened by Parker Lawson [2017], whose […]
