Robert Pellegrino

Postdoctoral Fellow

Affiliations

Postdoctoral Fellow, Monell Chemical Senses Center

Education

Ph.D., Food Science, University of Tennessee
Dr. Rer. Medic, Otorhinolaryngology, Technical University of Dresden

Laboratory Of

Dr. Pamela Dalton
Dr. Joel Mainland

Research Summary

My interests are to understand and predict approach and avoidance behaviors during odorous encounters. In naturalistic settings, odors are composed of numerous odorants that are carried in plumes. The focus of my work is to predict odor mixture characteristics based on structural characteristics of its constituent odorants and measure behavioral outcomes. The first aim is to collect reliable and valid human sensory data for a large set of odor mixtures at different combinations of concentrations. This information combined with physicochemical and structural variables will help us build predictive models that can be used with behavioral measurement tools to understand outcomes to naturalistic odors.

Keywords

olfaction, psychophysics, behavioral analysis, olfactory dysfunction

Representative Publications

Pellegrino, R., & Luckett, C. R. (2020). Aversive textures and their role in food rejection. Journal of Texture Studies. 51(5):733-741.

Pellegrino, R., Hummel, T., Emrich, R., Chandra, R., Turner, J., Trone, T., … & Luckett, C.R. (2020). Cultural determinants of food attitudes in anosmic patients. Appetite147, 104563.

Pellegrino, R., Han, P., Reither, N., & Hummel, T. (2019). Effectiveness of olfactory training on different severities of posttraumatic loss of smell. The Laryngoscope129(8), 1737-1743.

Pellegrino, R., Drechsler, E., Hummel, C., Warr, J., & Hummel, T. (2017). Bimodal odor processing with a trigeminal component at sub-and suprathreshold levels. Neuroscience363, 43-49.

Pellegrino, R., Crandall, P. G., & Seo, H. S. (2016). Using olfaction and unpleasant reminders to reduce the intention-behavior gap in hand washing. Scientific Reports6:18890.

Robert Pellegrino, PhD.

Contact Information

rpellegrino@monell.org
Twitter: @KingFunk5000