Her research centers on the conceptual foundations of neuroscience and theories of perception. In particular, she explores how our understanding of mind and brain would be different if we were looking at the sense of smell.
My research engages with a deceptively simple question: Have you ever wondered how you smell? Not to the noses of other people, but how your brain responds to the most ephemeral chemical signals and catapults them into consciousness. My work focuses on the chemical senses and probes ways to apply philosophical ideas to empirical research on how we should model perception and cognition in the brain.
Specifically, my research explores how our theories of perception and the brain would be different if we were looking at smell instead of the sensory paradigm in neuroscience and philosophy, vision.
I explore what olfaction can tell us about the human mind based on two areas of focus:
- The investigation of the perceptual and cultural dimensions of smell and its link to cognition
- The role of scientific expertise in laboratory-based neuroscience
Research interests:
- Sensory Perception and Psychology; History and Philosophy of Neuroscience; Olfaction
My research in the Philosophy of Olfaction investigates:
- How does the brain make sense of scents?
- What are the perceptual dimensions of smell?
- What are the epistemic, empirical, and social factors that define ongoing science (in comparison with the philosophical study of historical episodes)?
Specialization in neurophilosophy and olfaction.
Skills and Expertise:
- Process Modeling
- Philosophy
- Historiography
- Historical Analysis
- History and Philosophy of Science
- Molecular Biology
- Neuroscience
- Philosophy of Psychology
- Neurobiology
- Phenomenology
