Smell Research Technician
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Chris Maute doesn’t mean to get personal, but it’s his job to find out just how people smell. As a smell research technician at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, he gets involved in all aspects of their sensory testing experiments, from recruiting subjects to inventing testing gear to performing the tests that show how people smell and what their bodies and brains do with the information. For example, this device measures blood flow and swelling in the nose and establishes a baseline against which to measure the effects of chemical irritants such as ethanol, acetone, or histamines. Different subjects have different sensitivity to odors, and personality variables affect their sense of smell. Smells influence heart rate, breathing, skin conductivity, and startle responses. These factors are all relevant to any company selling a product with a fragrance, whose bottom line depends on buying and smelling.