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
Sonia Fereidooni’s work aims to highlight the ethical dimensions of big tech’s involvement in defence and surveillance and its implications for those in conflict situations such as the current situation […]
Elijah Darden was brought up with a strong sense of health inequalities and an awareness that multiple approaches affect wellbeing. Through his MPhil in Population Health Sciences, he is keen […]
This month’s 25th anniversary impact feature focuses on politics and law. The last 25 years have seen major political change across the world and Gates Cambridge Scholars have been working […]
A Gates Cambridge Scholar is first author of a paper how AI Ethics is sidelining Global South voices, reinforcing marginalisation. The study, Distributive Epistemic Injustice in AI Ethics: A Co-productionist […]
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Friends and colleagues are raising money for a prize dedicated to the legacy of the late Gates Cambridge Scholar Arif Naveed. Arif [2014] was an outstanding educationalist with a deep […]
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A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been appointed by the UK Department of Work and Pensions [DWP] to help design innovative policies and data-driven evidence to support social welfare and wellbeing […]
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A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won the UK final of Famelab in the science communication competition’s 20th anniversary year. Spatika Jayaram was crowned UK winner at the ceremony in early […]