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
Nominations for the Gates Cambridge Impact Prize 2025 open today [15th August] in celebration of the Scholarship’s 25th anniversary celebrations. Five award winners will receive £5,000 and be invited to participate in […]
Three Gates Cambridge Scholars discuss various ways to improve healthcare for all in the final episode of the first series of the So, now what? Podcast. Victor Roy, Johanna Riha […]
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been selected to play for Wigan Athletic’s first women’s football team. Sara Merican is one of 15 players signed by the club. The team were […]
The last few years have seen huge turbulence globally and that has affected every part of our lives, including food and agriculture. In some respects, that turbulence has brought opportunities, […]
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has been selected as chief of the Research and Engineering Division of the US Army Engineer and Research Development Center’s (ERDC) Cold Regions Research and Engineering […]
Culture plays a crucial role in peacebuilding and can challenge narratives of conflict and division, according to the latest episode of the Gates Cambridge podcast So, now what? In the […]
Christopher Kirchhoff [2001] has just co-authored a book which gives an inside look at Unit X, the elite unit within the Pentagon that he and co-author Raj M Shah founded. It […]
The opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games today will see athletes from around the world cross the centre of Paris on boats, navigating the waters of the river Seine, […]
When Hannah Claus [2024] studied computer science at school she soon realised that she was in a room full of white boys, looking at posters of white men. “I could […]
A Gates Cambridge Scholar has signed a deal to write a book on Indigenous climate justice. The Longest Night will be published by Atria Books, part of Simon & Schuster, […]