Monell Sensations

Monell Center Blog

  • Photographer: CJ Arayata (@cj_arayata)...

  • Dr. Emily Mayhew received her PhD in food science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For the past three years, she has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Mainland Lab where she worked to predict odor characteristics of molecules based on their structural characteristics.......

  • Alissa Smethers, PhD, received her PhD in Nutrition science from Pennsylvania State University. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Menella Lab where she looks at both children and their mothers as a dyad, sweet taste phenotypes, and new measures of dietary habits that......

  • For more than 40 years, the Monell Science Apprenticeship Program (MSAP) has grown to become a pillar of mentorship, one of five core values of Monell Chemical Senses Center. Mentorship that stimulates interest in science is crucial for the next generations of scientists. “This is......

  • Our sense of smell is central to how we interact with our world and how we form memories of special moments and bonds. However, for many of us, it was not until the COVID-19 pandemic had taken away people’s ability to smell that we became......

  • Understanding how mammals process sweet taste has been one of Monell’s most important and longest research quests. Many of us eat too much sugar, and to help limit overconsumption, a better understanding of how sweet taste works is key. Scientists have known for over two......

  • Chanyi Lu, PhD, received her doctorate in microbiology from Fudan University in Shanghai, China. She currently works in the laboratory of Peihua Jiang, PhD, researching parasites and tuft cells in the small intestine in addition to taste tissue regeneration in the tongue. Q. I know......

  • Dolly Al Koborssy, PhD, received her doctorate in neuroscience from Florida State University. She currently works in the laboratory of Johannes Reisert, PhD, using single-cell electrophysiology on olfactory receptor neurons to understand the olfactory response to different odorants and mechanisms underlying olfactory adaptation. Q. AChemS......

  • This past year, with all the changes revolving around COVID-19, in a strange way has served as a sabbatical for me....