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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
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 […]
Into the black box of human life
When Bailey Weatherbee was six, she wanted to know why she didn’t have any brothers and sisters. Her parents explained that her father had a chromosomal defect that halved the chances of a successful pregnancy and that her mother had suffered five miscarriages after she was born. That explanation jumpstarted an interest in developmental biology […]
Better mental health through memory control
Dhruv Nandamudi lived most of his early years on the outskirts of Detroit. At eight his family moved to Silicon Valley in California and, despite being very young, the difference in settings was clear to him. Although Silicon Valley was much more multicultural than Detroit, it was also much more competitive. “Silicon Valley was very […]
Scholar wins women in business advocate award
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a prestigious advocacy award for her outstanding work promoting women in business. Julie Pham, PhD won the Advocate Award at the Female Founders Association’s Champion Awards 2019. The Female Founders Alliance is a start-up community dedicated to accelerating highly scaleable female-founded start-ups. It has hundreds of companies in its founders network, thousands of individuals in its […]
Scholar wins prestigious PhD award
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded a highly competitive Cambridge Society for the Application of Research PhD Student Award. Carol Ibe [2015] is the first black student to win the award, which recognises outstanding research with real world application and assists students to pursue their research or careers. She won for her PhD research, […]
