Rachel Herz PhD

Dr. Rachel Herz is a neuroscientist specializing in perception and emotion and on the faculty at Brown University. She is a TEDx speaker, has published over 105 original research papers, and is a professional consultant to various industries regarding smell, taste, food and flavor.

Rachel is the author of several academic and popular science books, including the college textbook Sensation & Perception (Oxford University Press) now in its 7th edition; The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell (2007; Harper Perennial), a guide to everything about the sense of smell and selected as a finalist for the “2009 AAAS Prize for Excellence in Science Books”; That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion (2012; W.W. Norton & Co), which analyzes the food and taste-based emotion of disgust from culture to neuroscience, and was 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 explores how our senses and psychology govern the experiences and consequences of eating, and was a finalist for the “2018 Readable Feast Awards” and ranked among the “Best Food Books of 2018” by The Smithsonian and The New Yorker.

Rachel is a dual citizen of the US and Canada. She grew up in Montreal and received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. She is fascinated by human nature and loves all things scented and sensory. She lives in New England with her canine and human family.

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