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Benjamin Cocanougher

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

Latest News

Scholar to premiere film on DNA origami

A Gates Cambridge Scholar will be showcasing a film on her research on DNA origami at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas this month. Kerstin Goepfrich [2013] has written and produced […]

A wise elder speaks

I know many people say that the Gates Cambridge scholarship has been life changing, but I really mean it,” says Pete Manasantivongs [2001]. He was one of the first intake […]

Prize recognises work on 19th century Latin American musician

A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a prestigious international prize for musicological studies for his work in bringing back to life an early 19th century piece of Peruvian-Bolivian music which […]

Humans not responsible for chimp aggression

Chimpanzee aggression is not the result of interaction with humans and is something they naturally do, according to a new study co-authored by a former Gates Cambridge Scholar. The new […]

Reporting the world

When Justine Drennan arrived in Phnom Penh, she had little experience of journalism. Her time at Cambridge where she did a master’s in international relations had, however, given her a […]

Scholar establishes Utah Ethical Leadership Awards

A Gates Cambridge Scholar has set up an ethical leadership awards programme in Utah to highlight best practices and inspire others. Libby Blanchard [2012], who is doing a PhD in […]

Fish as good as chimpanzees at choosing the best partner for a task

Coral trout can now join chimpanzees as the only non-human species that can choose the right situation and the right partner to get the best result when collaboratively working, according […]

What microfossils can tell us about climate change today

Stijn De Schepper [2002] is leading an international research collaboration which aims to understand climate change in the Pliocene – a geological time period from 5 to 2.5 million years […]

Improving fieldwork practice

A paper by a Gates Cambridge Scholar aimed at helping social science researchers embarking on fieldwork for the first time has been published by the Oxford Journal of Human Rights […]

New research on ‘hardcore’ Mau Mau women prisoners

New research on the treatment of ‘hardcore’ female Mau Mau prisoners by the British in the late 1950s sheds new light on how ideas about gender, deviancy and mental health […]