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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
Provost receives honorary doctorate
The Provost of the Gates Cambridge Trust has been appointed an honorary doctor of the Board of Research at the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Professor Barry Everitt is among four new appointees to the Board and will have his doctorate formally conferred at a ceremony in the Stockholm City Hall on 22nd May 2015. […]
SimPrints wins business award
A social enterprise set up by Gates Cambridge Scholars has been named the Start-up Company of the Year at the Business Weekly Awards in Cambridge. SimPrints, which is based at ideaSpace City, won the top prize at the 25th Anniversary Business Weekly Awards presentation dinner at Queens’ College, Cambridge on Tuesday. The award was accepted […]
Leading woman
Conditional cash transfer programmes that give poor mothers small amounts of money for caring responsibilities don’t necessarily support women in meeting their practical needs, says Gates Cambridge Scholar Tara Cookson [2011]. CCTs vary according to country, but in Latin America, where Tara has done her fieldwork and where she has years of experience working with […]
Recognition grows for SimPrints
A pocket-sized fingerprint scanner that links individuals’ fingerprints to their health records has been created by a team of students and has the potential for widespread health benefits, according to a new study. In an article in the peer-review journal Global Health: Science and Practice, four students – three of them Gates Cambridge Scholars – […]
A revolution through the lens of history
Studying the history of political upheaval in the Middle East in Cairo just months after the Tahrir Square revolution certainly puts history in perspective. Max Reibman [2010] travelled to Egypt in the second year of his PhD, and as a historian studying the 1919 revolution he was able to experience the latest, powerful manifestation of […]
Scholar wins NASA Fellowship
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded a prestigious NASA fellowship to study the origins of the universe. Erin Kara [2011] has been awarded a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship. The Hubble is a NASA fellowship for research related to the NASA Cosmic Origins science goal, which seeks to answer the question “how did we get here”? […]
Investigating the roots of nationalism
In 1999, NATO bombs rained down on Belgrade, hitting various targets including a TV centre just 300 metres from Ivan Rajic’s flat. His mother lived in fear that a neighbouring newspaper office would be next on the list. His father, meanwhile, was documenting the situation in a daily diary for a Norwegian newspaper. The series […]
New US Gates Cambridge Scholars announced
Forty of the most academically brilliant and socially committed young people in the US will take up a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge this autumn. The 40 Scholars represent 38 institutions, seven of which have never had a Gates Cambridge Scholar before. The seven new institutions are Colby College in […]
Trees of life
Martin Kaonga has come a long way from his childhood days in a remote village in northern Zambia with just 200 households to his current role as an expert in carbon biogeochemistry and climate change. Martin is Director of Conservation Science at A Rocha, an international Christian conservation organisation, where he is responsible for conservation […]
The power of mentoring
A human rights barrister, a business school professor and a Life Sciences skills officer will give advice on how effective mentoring can improve opportunities for career progression at a professional development event next month. The Mentorship Panel will be held at 7-8.30pm on 4th February in the Gates Cambridge Common Room and is part of […]
