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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

Research impact award for Gates Cambridge Scholar

A Gates Cambridge Scholar is one of two winners of the 2023 Sandra Dawson Research Impact Award for his work on the economics of climate change earlier this month. The […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]