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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
How are priorities identified for global heath?
Three Gates Cambridge Scholars will lead an interactive discussion on how priorities are identified and set for global health issues at an Internal Symposium on Thursday. Alex Wood [2015], Blake Thomson [2015] and Sophie Hermanns [2015] will kick off a discussion on global health, providing perspectives from the medical, policy and health metrics points of view in a new […]
Reporting and researching Nigeria
Wale Adebanwi is at the height of his intellectual productivity. Last year his book, the first academic study of the Yoruba political elite, was published to great acclaim. It followed on from a 2013 book on corruption in Nigeria which won praise from no less a figure than Chinua Achebe. He has several more books […]
Scholar wins European Fellowship
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions research fellowship to pursue research on healing from chronic wounds. Derrick Roberts has won one of Europe’s most competitive and prestigious awards to undertake a postdoctoral position at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden from 2017. He will be working with Professor Molly Stevens, one of […]
Hip-Hop in the classroom
How can Hip-Hop culture be used in the classroom to increase underrepresented communities’ access to universities? Aya Waller-Bey [2015] says Hip-Hop is rich with potential for engaging and educating students. She is studying the five different elements of Hip-Hop, including emceeing, Djing and graffiti, with the aim of evaluating if Hip-Hop can be used by […]
Europe’s top young social entrepreneurs
Two Gates Cambridge Scholars who co-founded the start-up SimPrints have been named in Forbes’ 30 under 30 Europe list for Social Entrepreneurs. Daniel Storisteanu [2012] and Toby Norman were named alongside their co-founder Tristram Norman [2011]. Fellow Gates Scholar and co-founder, Alexandra Grigore [2012 – pictured with Daniel, Toby and Tristram], was not eligible as she recently […]
Computer science revolution
A start-up founded and led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar has become the first South African organisation selected by Google to champion a national initiative to revolutionise the fields of Computer Science and software development in South Africa. Hyperion Development was created by Riaz Moola when he was an undergraduate at the University of KwaZulu Natal. […]
Beijing bound
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a prestigious scholarship to study for a master’s in China later this year. Carlos Gonzalez Sierra [2015], who is doing a master’s in Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge, will be one of the first cohort of 111 Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Carlos, from the […]
The origins of farming in Africa
How did farming develop in south eastern Nigeria and what are the implications today? Chioma Ngonadi’s PhD will take a broad look at how the agricultural tradition became established in Nigeria over the last 3,000 years. Through ethnography, survey and excavation, she hopes to analyse broad-scale changes in agricultural practices to understand how people lived […]
Alumna chosen as Rising Star
A Gates Cambridge alumna has been selected as a Rising Star in the Association for Psychological Science, reflecting the best and brightest of psychological science. Molly Crockett is one of the 2015 Rising Stars. The awards recognises outstanding psychological scientists in the earliest stages of their research career post-PhD whose innovative work has already advanced […]
Self-harm and eating disorders in Japan
A new book explores representations of femininity and what it means to be a woman in relation to the rise in eating disorders and self-harm in Japan. The book, Femininity, Self-harm and Eating Disorders in Japan: Navigating contradiction in narrative and visual culture, is written by Gates Cambridge Alumna Gitte Marianne Hansen and is based on […]
