Affiliations
- Associate Member, Monell Chemical Senses Center
- Senior Director, Multisector Engagements, Monell Chemical Senses Center
- Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of Pennsylvania
Education
Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
Research Summary
How can we predict who will experience and recover from smell and taste dysfunction? And what role do smell and taste play in maintaining health across the lifespan? Understanding chemosensation in health and disease requires bridging the gap between rigorous assessment and accessible implementation.
The research in the Parma Lab integrates three interconnected approaches: developing and validating rapid, scalable assessment tools; building population-scale data infrastructure to identify chemosensory phenotypes using artificial intelligence; and establishing widespread clinical care pathways. We employ psychophysical methods, longitudinal studies, and cross-sector partnerships to understand how conditions ranging from COVID-19 and neurodegenerative disease to autism and metabolic treatments affect chemosensory perception and how these changes influence nutrition, quality of life, and health outcomes.
Keywords
Large-scale chemosensory assessment, consortium research, GLP-1, wellbeing, clinical trial
Selected Publications
Parma, V., Mainland, J.D., Hwang, L-D., Kedziora, R.J., Pineau, N., Gerkin, R.C., Niv, M.Y. (2025). FAIR Chemosensory Data: Unlocking AI for Flavour, Food and Health. Trends in Food Science and Technology.
Munger, S., Zhao, K., Barlow, L., Boak, D., Boateng, K., Coldwell, S., Dalton, P., Doty, R.L., Douglas, J., Duffy, V., Franklin, F., Hayes, J.E., Hoffman, H., Hubert, P.§, Joseph, P.V., Justice, J., Levy, J., Mennella., J., Obrist, M., Pinto., J., Pribitkin, E., Simons, C., Albers, M., Parma.V. (2025) Towards Universal Chemosensory Testing: Needs, Barriers and Opportunities. Chemical Senses.
Agarwal, K., Chaudhary, S., Parma, V., Balhara, Y.P.S., Sarkar, S. (2025). Anxiety Modulates Odor-Linked Brain Connectivity and Alcohol Dependence Risk. Brain Communications.
Hunter, S.R., Zola, A., Ho, E., Kallen, M., Adjei-Danquah, E., Achenbach, C., Smith, G., Gershon, R., Schalet, B., Parma, V., Dalton, P. (2024). Using SCENTinel to Predict SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Insights from a Community Sample During Delta and Omicron Variants. Frontiers in Public Health
Parma, V.*, Ohla, K.*, Veldhuizen, M. G.*, Niv, M. Y., Kelly, C. E., Bakke, A. J., Cooper, K. W., Bouysset, C., Pirastu, N., Dibattista, M., Kaur, R., Liuzza, M. T., Pepino, M. Y., Schöpf, V., Pereda Loth, V., Olsson, S. B., Gerkin, R. C., Rohlfs Domínguez, P., Albayay, J., Farruggia, M.C., Bhutani, S., Fjaeldstad, A. W., Kumar, R., Menini, A., Bensafi, M., Sandell, M., Konstantinidis, I., Di Pizio, A., Genovese, F., Öztürk, L., Thomas Danguin, T., Frasnelli, J., Boesveldt, S., Saatci, Ö., Saraiva, L. R., Lin, C., Golebiowski, J., Hwang, L. D., Ozdener, M. H., Guàrdia, M. D., Laudamiel, C., Ritchie, M., Havlíček, J., Pierron, D., Roura, E., Navarro, M., Nolden, A. A., Lim, J., Whitcroft, K. L., Colquitt, L. R., Ferdenzi, C., Brindha, E. B., Altundag,A., Macchi, A., Nunez Parra, A., Patel, Z. M., Fiorucci, S., Philpott, C. M., Smith, B. C., Lundström, J. N., Mucignat, C., Parker, J. K., van den Brink, M., Schmuker, M., Fischmeister, F. Ph. S., Heinbockel, T., Shields, V. D. C., Faraji, F., Santamaría, E., Fredborg, W. E. A., Morini, G., Olofsson, J. K., Jalessi, M., Karni, N., D’Errico, A., Alizadeh, R., Pellegrino, R., Meyer, P., Huart, C., Chen, B., Soler, G. M., Alwashahi, M. K., Abdurrahman, O., Welge Lüssen, A., Dalton, P., Freiherr, J., Yan, C. H., de Groot, J. H. B.,Voznessenskaya, V. V., Klein, H., Chen, J., Okamoto, M., Sell, E. A., Singh, P. B., Walsh Messinger, J., Archer, N. S., Koyama, S., Deary, V., Roberts, S. C., Yanik, H., Albayrak, S., Martinec Novákov, L., Croijmans, I., Portillo Mazal, P., Moein, S. T., Margulis, E., Mignot, C., Mariño, S., Georgiev, D., Kaushik, P. K., Malnic, B., Wang, H., Seyed Allaei, S., Yoluk, N., Razzaghi, S., Justice, J. M., Restrepo, D., Hsieh, J. W., Reed, D. R., Hummel, T., Munger, S. D., Hayes, J. E. (2021). More Than Smell-COVID-19 Is Associated With Severe Impairment of Smell, Taste, and Chemesthesis. Chemical senses, 46. Doin’: 10.1093/chemse/bjab050.
