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.
Centre College
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Films on immigrant teenagers in Israel, DNA origami, a paper crane and a local market trader will be shown at the first Scholar-Made Films Festival in February. The event takes […]