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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
Gates Cambridge announces Class of 2019
Ninety of the most academically outstanding and socially committed postgraduates have been awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge, including the first from Mongolia and Burundi. The 90 scholars who make up the Class of 2019 are citizens of 37 different countries and this year 27 universities have produced their first Gates […]
Breaking the human trafficking loop
While she was at high school Anna Forringer-Beal [2019] worked as a research assistant on a university project about people who risked their lives making the dangerous crossing from Mexico and Central America to the US. Her research work involved building a catalogue of artefacts that researchers had collected on the borders of Mexico and Arizona. […]
From stem cell biology to technology start-up
Stan Wang’s career path hasn’t been a linear one. Instead he has been grabbed by different opportunities that have come his way, whether working with a Nobel Prize Laureate or co-founding a company which could provide the technology needed for the next generation of medical treatments. When he went to university, Stan [2011] intended to […]
Using digital for positive mental well being
Gregory Serapio-García didn’t just do a little bit of research during his undergraduate studies. He independently gathered data from around 9,000 participants in 105 countries in nine different languages to get a comprehensive picture of subjective well-being across cultures. His interest in mental health and how the digital world can improve it will form the basis […]
Scholar recognised in top 100 influencers on climate policy
Gates Cambridge Scholar Victoria Herrmann has been named one of the top 100 most influential people in climate policy. Victoria [2014], who is President and Managing Director of The Arctic Institute think tank, has been named in Apolitical’s World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy for 2019 list alongside Sir David Attenborough, Pope Francis, Greta Thunberg and Hoesung Lee, Chair of the Intergovernmental […]
Book award for study of cash transfer programmes
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a prestigious book award for her ‘outstanding’ book on cash transfer programmes. Tara Cookson [2011] won the American Association of Geographers’ Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography for her book Unjust Conditions: Women’s Work and the Hidden Cost of Cash Transfer Programs, published by the University of California Press. The […]
Learning about the world through language
Cameron Taylor has had a varied career since finishing his PhD. Not only has he worked with the former Archbishop of Canterbury on a foundation which organises dialogues between leaders and influential thinkers, but he has just taken up a job as an artificial intelligence interactions architect. The new job, which is based in Norway, means Cameron, […]
Why cultural heritage matters
Cultural heritage is under threat from isolationism, extremism and xenophobia, but this has brought a new understanding of why it matters more than ever, Irina Bokova, the former Director General of UNESCO, said in her Gates Cambridge Annual Lecture yesterday. In her lecture, Why Heritage Matters, Bokova said that while all cultures are different, awareness of […]
‘Most laptops vulnerable to attack via peripheral devices’
Many modern laptops and an increasing number of desktop computers are much more vulnerable to hacking through common plug-in devices than previously thought, according to new research. The research, to be presented today (26 February) at the Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium in San Diego, shows that attackers can compromise an unattended machine in a matter […]
From the Middle East in medieval times to rare languages and fruitfly behaviour
Three Gates Cambridge Scholars will speak this week about their research into medieval interfaith and intercultural exchange in the Middle East, rare languages where there are no rules on the word order in sentences and fruit fly larva’s ability to adapt their behaviour through experience. The three – Nick Posegay, Matt Malone and Kristina Klein – will take part in […]
