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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
Investing in healthy populations
Healthy populations can drive socio-economic growth and we have to find the right mechanisms for different organsiations who profit from them, including businesses, to work together and invest in them, a Gates Cambridge Alumna told an international meeting last week. Eva-Maria Hempe organised a session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of New Champions […]
Controlling molecules
Derrick Roberts has just published his fourth paper linked to his PhD and is already looking forward to the next one. Derrick [2012], who is undertaking a PhD in Chemistry, recently published a research article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on the post-assembly modification of a new family of self-assembled cage molecules. This paper is […]
In the gusts of wind
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been given a prestigious award at an international poetry competition. Afrodita Nikolova was given the Enhalon award for the best poem read by a young poet at the Struga Poetry Evenings festival in Macedonia. Festival attendees included Chinese poet Bei Dao, American poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Yusef […]
A role model for Filipinos
Ramon Maluping has just been named the first recipient of the Huwarang (Outstanding) Overseas Filipino Worker. The award is sponsored by a range of partners, including Christian Broadcasting Networks Asia and Filipino migrant organisations, and is open to Filipinos around the world. Ramon was selected for the award because he was judged to have made […]
Seeking biotech leaders of tomorrow
An inter-generational biotech leadership summit is inviting ‘Leaders of Tomorrow’ from across the world to the University of Cambridge to learn about the challenges facing the global bioeconomy. The GapSummit 2016 is Global Biotech Revolution’s flagship conference and was set up by a team of Cambridge University students, including Gates Cambridge Scholar Divya Venkatesh [2011] who was […]
Who does the housework in China?
The sons of Chinese parents who share housework more equally are more likely to help around the house in traditional rural areas, according to a study by a Gates Cambridge Alumnus. Yang Hu’s study of the reproduction of gender inequality in China shows that sons are more likely to learn to do housework from their parents […]
Improving the efficiency of fluidised bed reactors
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a prestigious award for her talk at an international conference on the use of MRI techniques to improve the efficiency of fluidised bed reactors. Hilary Fabich [2012], who is doing a PhD in Chemical Engineering, was given the Sir Paul Callaghan Young Investigator Award for her talk at the International […]
Water world
A Gates Cambridge Alumna has been awarded a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar grant to support the research and writing of a book on climate and water. Sarah Dry has been awarded $50,400 for her book titled The Circulation of Our World: Scientists and the Quest to Understand the Waters of the Globe. Spanning meteorology, oceanography, […]
Beyond the green economy
A Gates Cambridge alumna is launching a book which has been praised as an important feminist critique of the green economy next month. Ingrid L. Nelson, who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Vermont, has co-edited the book Practising Feminist Political Ecologies: […]
Send a song
A unique project which involves medical students writing songs for children in care aims to build empathy in the students and self esteem in the children. Send a Song was created by Gates Cambridge Scholar Erica Cao and colleagues and has just finished its first pilot in New York. The model for the project was Erica’s […]
