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
Two Gates Cambridge Scholars will be speaking on gender equality issues at this year’s Cambridge Festival in April. Professor Jennifer Piscopo, Director of the Center for Research and Scholarship at […]
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David Jun Lee [2021] is keen to demonstrate that there are many ways to have an impact on the world and for him that impact comes through better policymaking, especially […]
Twenty three of the most academically outstanding and socially committed US citizens have been selected to be part of the 2022 class of Gates Cambridge Scholars at the University of […]
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 at the […]
A Gates Cambridge has won a prestigious Alan Turing Enrichment Award to work on public understanding of climate change using machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. Ramit Debnath [2018] will use […]
Will Snyder’s research is focused on understanding what brain scans can tell us about developmental disorders. His PhD, which he began in 2021, centres on the study of brain development […]
The Gates Cambridge Trust is seeking to appoint a Provost following the successful tenure of Professor Barry Everitt. The position of the Provost is held for five years in the […]