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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
Links between low quality pollen and bee survival
Eating low quality pollen may protect bees from attack by parasites, according to a new study. The study, now available online and published in the American Naturalist in June, says that a low quality diet may have compensatory benefits for bees because it protects them from their natural enemies. Those natural enemies include parasitical wasps, which […]
India: a history in moving pictures
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has written the first scholarly volume to be published on the history of Indian documentary film. Peter Sutoris’ book Visions of Development: Films Division of India and the Imagination of Progress, 1948-75 will be launched on 10th May in London and highlights continuities with and departures from colonial notions of development in […]
Progress on treatment for high blood pressure
Researchers led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar have identified a new way of potentially treating one of the most common curable causes of hypertension. Some 31% of men and 28% of women in England have hypertension or high blood pressure. Long-term high blood pressure is a major risk factor for coronary artery disease, stroke, heart […]
Alumnus wins fellowship for future arts leaders
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded a US$50,000 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship for the Performing and Visual Arts. Daniel Walden [2012] was among nine artists awarded the 2016 Fellowship which aims to help them become successful “so they may someday serve as leaders in their field and help others in the future”. Daniel is both a […]
One-stop shop for career development
A Gates Cambridge Scholar who set up a mentorship platform to expand university access for international students has extended it to career development. Greg Nance [2011] is CEO and founder of Dyad, formerly ChaseFuture. The name change coincides with the launch of a fully supported professional development curriculum so a university student can begin exploring […]
Imaging breakthrough
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is part of the team that performed the world’s first hyperpolarized MRI image of the human liver – an achievement which could have huge implications for the early detection and successful treatment of cancer. University of Cambridge researchers, including Gates Cambridge Scholar Surrin Deen [2014], are the first in Europe to use […]
Gay men’s chorus performs at Catholic college
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has organised the first concert by a gay men’s chorus at a Catholic college in the US. Daniel DiCenso [2005], who did his PhD in Music at the University of Cambridge, organised and sponsored the concert by the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester […]
Understanding motor neurone disease
Julie Qiaojin Lin [2013] is just over two years into her PhD in Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and has already had a major paper on her research into motor neurone disease published in a peer review journal. In November, she was one of the co-authors of a paper published in the journal Neuron. It investigated […]
Class of 2016 announced
Fifty-five of the most academically exceptional and socially committed people from across the globe have been selected as Gates Cambridge Scholars after interviews in Cambridge in March. The Scholars will join the 35 US Scholars selected in late January to form the class of 2016, all of whom will take up the most prestigious international postgraduate […]
Teaching excellence in diversity
This month Thabo Msibi [2009] will receive his university’s highly prestigious distinguished teacher award for teaching excellence in recognition of his work on diversity. He says the rigorous assessment process for the prize at the University of KwaZulu-Natal relied on detailed student feedback as well as other information. “It’s such a validation,” says Thabo, […]
