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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
First evidence of crab fishing by chimpanzees
The first evidence of chimpanzees fishing for and eating crabs is presented in a new study published today. The study by Gates Cambridge Alumna Kathelijne Koops [2006] is published in the Journal of Human Evolution. It is the first time a non-human ape has been shown habitually catching and consuming aquatic fauna such as crabs and fish. Previous research suggests […]
Transforming music education
Collin Edouard wants to change music education and make it more inclusive, to challenge the received idea that western classical music is the highest form of music and that other cultural forms are somehow of lesser value. Collin [2019], who begins a Masters in Music [MMus] in the autumn, has recently returned from Kampala where he […]
Award for food history magazine
A magazine on the history of food edited by a Gates Cambridge Scholar has just been named Publication of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. The award for Emelyn Rude’s magazine Eaten is part of the annual food writing and cookbook awards presented by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. The group itself was founded in 1978 […]
Applying a gender lens to climate change
Reetika Subramanian’s research into the impact of climate change on gender relations will see her embedded among a group of female labourers who are forced to leave their village annually as a result of the increasing number of severe droughts in western India. The subject brings together Reetika’s interest in story-telling, an interest linked to […]
A rallying cry for education for girls
Gates Cambridge Scholar Andrea Pizziconi gave the world premiere of her new global anthem Let Us Dance at an event to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a leading international NGO for girls’ education last week. Andrea – who goes by the name of Drea as an artist – took part in the CAMFED ‘Education Changes Everything’ Gala where she performed “Let […]
Celebrating Gates Cambridge research
Nearly 30 Gates Cambridge scholars took part in this year’s Day of Research, sharing their research findings on a broad range of subjects, including war songs in Donbas, the repair of central nervous system cells and bird conservation. Andrea Kusec, internal officer of the Gates Cambridge Scholars Council, described the event as “a celebration not just a conference” and said it was central to the Gates […]
Two scholars share 2019 Bill Gates Sr. Prize
Two Gates Cambridge Scholars are sharing the 2019 Bill Gates Sr. Prize which recognise their outstanding research and social leadership. Carol Nkechi Ibe and Cansu Karabiyik have been selected for the prize which was established by the Gates Cambridge Trustees in June 2012 in recognition of Bill Gates Sr’s role in establishing the Gates Cambridge […]
Eliminating the HIV reservoir
When she was 16, Isabella Ferreira did some work experience on the paediatric ward of a local hospital in KwaZulu-Natal. The experience of seeing young children with HIV had a huge impact on her and she wrote about one girl in particular in a school essay soon afterwards: “Amongst the tangle of the once white, […]
Human-computer interaction for development
Nearly 100 people attended a recent Gates Cambridge event in Mumbai on Human Computer Interaction [HCI] for development. The event was held at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and was designed to connect Gates Cambridge alumni with the leading experts and interdisciplinary researchers on urban science, futuristic agriculture and energy technologies. The seminar, which took […]
Celebrating Africans in STEM
Two Gates Cambridge Scholars are among four African scientists at Cambridge who are organising a symposium on Africans in STEM on 28th June. The symposium is the brainchild of four scientists in diverse fields stretching over Pharmacology, Pathology, Chemistry and Engineering. They include Gates Cambridge Scholars Cynthia Okoye and Sandile Mtetwa. The aim of the […]
