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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
Scholar is awarded a prestigious scholarship by Japan
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded a prestigious scholarship by the Japanese Government to deepen understanding of Japan in the world Jessica Fernandez De Lara Harada [2016] was awarded a scholarship by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to participate, alongside other Latin American scholars, in an interdisciplinary programme in Japan to deepen and promote […]
How to predict the success or failure of a new retail business
Researchers led by Gates Cambridge Scholar Krittika D’Silva have used a combination of social media and transport data to predict the likelihood that a given retail business will succeed or fail. Using information from 10 different cities around the world, the researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, have developed a model that can predict with […]
Studying the adolescent brain
Adolescence is a critical time for the development of the human brain. The brain undergoes a lot of change in adolescence and it is when a lot of psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression and schizophrenia emerge. This is presumably the result of abnormal development which may be caused by a range of internal or external factors. Frantisek […]
Creating a Classics community
A Gates Cambridge Scholar’s fascination with an ancient Greek novel, which highlights the complexity of late Greek culture, has provided the springboard for the first major conference on its author, Heliodorus, for 20 years. The Heliodorus in New Contexts conference will take place in Cambridge in December, 20 years after the publication of the papers […]
Gaze-controlled applications win Microsoft grant
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a $15,000 grant from Microsoft for his work on human computer interaction, intelligent user interfaces and inclusive design. Pradipta Biswas won the AI for Accessibility grant for his work for the Intelligent Inclusive Interaction Design Lab at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing at the Indian Institute of Science. The lab recently began a collaboration […]
The beauty of maths
Yufei Zhao won the MIT School of Science’s Future of Science Award over the summer. It is a prestigious award based on his research contribution to the field of combinatorics – as well as his mentorship, service and outreach. Recently, Yufei and three undergraduates solved an open problem concerning the number of independent sets in […]
Coding start-up aims to boost quality of computer education
A computer science education start-up founded by a Gates Cambridge Scholar has raised the funds needed to expand its coding education mission into code review with the aim of helping millions of aspiring developers around the world. HyperionDev was founded by Riaz Moola as an online coding bootcamp based in South Africa. It has since […]
From undergraduate to biotech boss
Just months after completing his MBA at the University of Cambridge Chandler Robinson started a biotech company and sold a potentially life-saving drug that he worked on as an undergraduate, which is now being fast tracked by the US and Europe after a successful Phase Two trial. Earlier this year the company he sold it […]
Children’s stories as objects of power
What role do the stories children hear as they grow have in building a sense of identity? Thandeka Cochrane [2015] says children’s stories are crucial to self-formation. She is interested in how literacy projects in southern Africa are undermining local community knowledge and imposing western ideas on the most vulnerable. Her PhD in Social Anthropology […]
Transforming supramolecular complexes
Researchers have, for the first time, succeeded in transforming the structure of a supramolecular complex in three different ways, according to a new paper. Gates Cambridge Scholar Derrick Roberts [2012] is co-lead author with Dr Ben Pilgrim on the paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society which relates to his research while at the University of Cambridge. His […]
