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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
AI system self-organises to resemble brains of complex organisms
A team of Cambridge scientists, co-led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar, have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system – in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints – allows it to develop features of the brains of complex organisms in order […]
Scholar wins history of science & medicine essay prize
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a prestigious essay competition about the history of early science with a treatise on evidence of knowledge exchange between the Ming-Chinese and Iberian conventions in the 16th century. The essay competition was run by the Early Sciences Forum of the History of Science Society and the Early Science and Medicine journal […]
Addressing the complex roots of environmental crime
Simone Haysom [2009] says her MPhil at the University of Cambridge helped to change her life course. While she had been interested in climate change and human geography as an undergraduate, doing the MPhil in Environment, Society and Development at an international university as part of the Gates Cambridge cohort broadened her perspective and set […]
First critical analysis of Aalto Studio’s religious buildings published
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has published the first critical account of the religious modern architecture created by Finland’s Aalto Studio. Alvar Aalto is known as the forerunner of mid-century modernism in design. He worked closely with his wives and fellow architects Aino and Elissa. Sofia Singler’s book, The religious architecture of Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto, […]
Gates Cambridge seeks Programme Assistant
About us Gates Cambridge Scholarships are prestigious, highly competitive, full-cost scholarships awarded to outstanding applicants from countries outside the UK to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge. Gates Cambridge Scholars become part of a lifelong global community defined by its core value of commitment to improving the […]
Scholar named National Geographic Explorer
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been named a National Geographic Explorer by the National Geographic Society to research environmental resistance and justice in the Middle East. Mayumi Sato, who is doing a PhD in Sociology [2021], will use the funding primarily for her PhD research and fieldwork, including developing public-facing materials related to her research […]
Scholar wins prestigious history prize
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been awarded the prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize to fund a book on India’s participation in the world order from the late 18th century to today. Dr Bérénice Guyot-Réchard, associate professor of international history at King’s College London and the founder of NIHSA, the New International Histories of South Asia network, will use […]
World experts in obesity to give Gates Cambridge Annual Lecture
Two world-leading academics in understanding the genetic aspects of obesity will give this year’s Gates Cambridge Annual Lecture next month. In Brain Food: How your subconscious brain controls your appetite, weight and growth, Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly and Professor Sadaf Farooqi will explain how the brain plays a crucial role in controlling our eating habits […]
Running for office
Greg Nance has gone from running two non-profit organisations and a series of ultra marathons to running for office. Not that he has dropped the non-profits, but he is now doing them alongside a new political role. Greg was recently chosen as a Washington State representative for Kitsap County, one of 49 districts across Washington […]
Legacies of Biafra Heritage Project to launch in south-eastern Nigeria
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is to organise a two-day intergenerational public engagement event in Nigeria on the Biafra war and its legacies. Stanley Onyemechalu [2021] has been awarded the Public Engagement Starter Fund (PESF) by the University of Cambridge for his ‘Legacies of Biafra Heritage Project’. The PESF supports University of Cambridge researchers to “undertake […]
