About Rachel Herz, Ph.D.

Rachel Herz, Ph.D., is a neuroscientist and world leading expert on the psychological science of smell. She has been actively conducting research on the senses, emotion, perception, motivated behavior, and cognition since 1990.

Dr. Herz is a TEDx 2024 and TEDx 2019 speaker, has published over 100 original research articles to date, and received numerous awards and grants. She is on the faculty at Brown University, a professional consultant to various aromachemical industries, is frequently called upon as an expert witness in legal cases involving the sense of smell, and has active research collaborations with scientists in the US and Europe.

Dr. Herz is also vigorously involved in outreach, advocacy, and education on smell, taste, and food-flavor, and is a founding advisory board member of Fifth Sense, The Smell and Taste Association of North America, The World Taste and Smell Association, and the Chief Scientific Advisor for OVR Technology. She is also an executive officer of the International Society of Neurogastronomy and the Association for Chemoreception Sciences.

Dr. Herz is the author of a number of academic and popular science books including: the leading college textbook on Sensation & Perception (Oxford University Press, 2024); The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell (Harper Collins, 2008), which was selected as a finalist for the “2009 AAAS Prize for Excellence in Science Books,” That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion (W.W. Norton & Co, 2012), a New York Times Book Review “Editor’s Choice,” and Why You Eat What You Eat: The Science Behind Our Relationship with Food (W.W. Norton & Co, 2018), which was a finalist for the “2018 Readable Feast Awards,” and ranked among the “Best Food Books of 2018” by The Smithsonian.

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