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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
Mothers: the hidden story of the struggle for equality
The stories of the mothers of influential black thinkers and activists are powerful, but have been little studied, says Anna Nti-Asare-Tubbs [2017]. As part of her PhD in Sociology, she is researching the stories of the mothers of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Junior and James Baldwin – Alberta King, Louise Little and Emma Berdis […]
Charting the experiences of women in Antarctica
How have women integrated into everyday life in Antarctica over the past decades? What strategies have they used to succeed in male-dominated environments and how can polar science be more inclusive and representative? These are some of the strands of Morgan Seag’s research into the evolving role of women in Antarctica. She is conducting interviews […]
Making connections on the situation in Gaza
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been invited to join a body which connects science and policy as a result of speaking at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. Mona Jebril, who recently completed her PhD in Education, was invited to join the network of evidence and expertise at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Science and Policy.[CSaP]. […]
A radical approach to science
A Gates Cambridge scholar is organising an Open Science Day which aims to change the way science is done. Alex Quent [2017] has invited researchers from brain sciences and neuroscience to the 20th November event at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. The event will discuss open science practices, enabling researchers to make science more open. […]
Scholar speaks at Grand Challenges meeting
A Gates Cambridge Scholar was invited to take part in the annual Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges meeting in Berlin this week. Carol Ibe [2015] spoke about her PhD research in Plant Sciences and her non-profit organisation JR Biotek Foundation in the Crop Research Track Session of the Grand Challenges meeting. She also participated in a […]
The science of hallucinations
Colleen Rollins has long been interested in how the brain works and in mental health so it is appropriate that she is studying hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. “As someone interested in how the brain works, hallucinations are an intriguing phenomenon,” she says. “Through them it is possible to probe our perception of how we […]
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 […]
