News
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
- Share
Latest News
Democratic development
Papa Momodou Jack wants to change how development is practised in the sphere of public health by bridging the divide between scholarship and policy and shaping interventions that acknowledge the different social, cultural, political and economic contexts in which it takes place. As part of his PhD in Geography, Momodou [2018] will look at access to healthcare in Ethiopia, focusing […]
Integrating refugees in Germany and Lebanon
A Gates Cambridge alumna has been awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship to compare the ways refugees are integrated into host societies in Germany and Lebanon. Hanna Baumann [2012], who did a PhD in Architecture at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Urban Conflicts Research, will look in particular at how infrastructure and public […]
Provost to head Society for Neuroscience
Gates Cambridge Provost Professor Barry Everitt has been chosen as President-Elect of the Society for Neuroscience. He is the first President of the Society to be actively based at an institution outside of North America. Professor Everitt, who is Director of Research in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, was President of the Federation of European […]
Memories are made of this
Levan Bokeria has been researching how memories are formed and consolidated, in essence how they move from our short to our long term memory. He says: “I am looking at what is going on in the brain and what conditions make the process more effective. This could, in the long term, help with understanding certain […]
Cycling in service
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is cycling 545 miles to raise funds for HIV/AIDS treatment in the Bay Area of California through AIDS/LifeCycle. Ben Cole [2011] had just moved to San Francisco when he was asked by a new friend to participate in a 545-mile, seven-day bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. He was eager […]
A voice for basic human rights
Salma Daoudi is interested in exploring social and economic rights as basic human rights and in how issues such as access to health and education get little attention because those most affected by them lack a political voice. Her undergraduate dissertation was on how political power structures can impact how certain infectious diseases – tuberculosis, […]
The State of Things
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is raising funds to start a unique educational platform that addresses shortcomings in citizenship and political education across the UK and other regions of the world. Georgiana Epure [pictured] and three other Cambridge students and alumni – Matt Mahmoudi, David Orr and Luke Naylor-Perrott – are raising funds to start The […]
Predicting footfall at new venues
How can new urban venues better predict their chances of success? Researchers at the University of Cambridge have used the Foursquare platform to look at footfall in localised areas at particular times of day in order to better predict the success rate of new venues.The aim is to help new businesses have a better idea […]
Exploring Andean prehistory
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has become a National Geographic explorer after winning a National Geographic Early Career grant. Sara Morrisset [2016] won the $5K grant for her archaeological fieldwork this summer. It covers excavation work she will do in Peru as part of her PhD in Archaeology as she seeks to better understand the origins […]
Exploring alternative forms of power
Sandile Mtetwa wants to transform the energy sector in her country. Her PhD in Chemistry, which she will begin in the autumn, will investigate alternative energy sources which can produce and store hydrogen and could give Zimbabwe access to cost effective solar energy. Her interest in clean energy was ignited during her undergraduate studies which […]
