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
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 […]
GSS navigates uncertainty
Scholars need to collaboratively design new institutions to tackle the crises of the 21st century world, the first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the Global Scholars Symposium last weekend. Luis Moreno Ocampo gave the opening keynote at the symposium, which was founded by Gates Cambridge and Rhodes scholars in 2008 and aims […]
For the love of art
Julien Domercq has just finished his first job curating an exhibition. The Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell exhibition at the National Gallery has won five-star reviews from the critics and been seen by just under 400,000 visitors. Julien [2013] took on the curating role just over a year after taking time out from […]
Scholars pitch their passions
The Gates Cambridge Scholars Council held an event last week to help scholars interested in education access and equality hone their pitching skills. Pitch Your Passion brought the Gates Cambridge community together to exchange ideas and experiences. Three Scholars – Sandile Mtetwa, Mike Meaney, and Jerelle Joseph – presented their projects and shared some of the challenges […]
Is pro-social behaviour good for us?
Robert Henderson is interested in moral development and in what encourages us to behave in positive ways towards each other. His PhD in Psychology begins this autumn. “I am interested in what influences people to behave positively, in why people think the way they do and what makes them change their minds,” he says. He […]
