Everything I Learned Along the Way: Synthesizing Your Life from Your Experiences with Dr. Rachel Herz
Dr. Rachel Herz 20:10
Yeah, well, actually, but it did have a very motivating effect on me, because I’ve always had the back of my mind that that’s not satisfying as an answer. So one of the things also with my PhD program, this is something else in Canadian universities is there’s a lot of coursework and a lot of and so I was taking one of the courses I was thinking at the time was reading different research papers. And one of them actually, this was about emotion and so forth. One of them, the researchers actually used smell to manipulate mood, and this had never been done before. And they had this little paragraph in the introduction about why they had chosen the sense of smell to do this with and that it was this primitive sense, deeply tied to emotion. And it had these various evolutionarily base connections. And one of the things I really learned very well, in my master’s research was evolutionary theory. So one of the things I really want to get out as a message is that everything works out, you know, to really make sense in the end, and although a lot of people at the time professors and so forth, criticize, like, actually, I found this out, professors have a meeting, and they evaluate students and how they’re doing. And I was considered, you know, among those least likely to succeed, because I was constantly switching areas and doing this and then doing that. But actually, everything that I learned along the way, moved together to really inform me and lead me to making novel insights and getting me to where I am. And if I hadn’t had that, if I would have just been sort of spinning the same wheel all along, I never would have been doing what I do now. So that I actually think is a great strength and opportunity to have all these different areas of background. But any reading this,
Dr. Russell Strickland 21:47
Whatever you’re doing, as long as you’re dealing with intention, that is something that you’re interested in somehow and something that motivates you, there is a thread and you might not recognize it until much later, you might not ever appreciate it yourself, but but it creates a strength, it creates a well rounded person. I mean, my background is quite very, but I think all of those pieces have gotten me to where I am now. And I appreciate all of my work, I wouldn’t say Oh, I wish I could erase that part. No, it helped me in some way. And I think that’s always the case. As long as we’re not being forced to do something, you’re forced to do something it might not be, it might be contrary to what you do. And you might really switch tracks. But otherwise, there is this sort of organic way that things tend to fit together. As long as you just sort of intuitively follow what’s interesting to you, it seems,
Dr. Rachel Herz 22:29
yeah, especially if you’re looking back on it retrospectively. And then making the narrative makes sense. But I had learning and memory really very well trained as an undergraduate. And I had really good evolutionary theory background, and I had, you know, learning all this work about emotion. And then when I read this paper, this light bulb literally went off. And I realized that the way to marry biology and psychology was something that I was really interested in, was to study the sense of smell, in particular, how the connection between smell and emotional memory. And going back to that question, that always really bothered me. And I was also really lucky, because my supervisor at the time, whose work was completely different. And I had done work in his area, he was a social psychologist, particularly interested in aesthetics, so you know, art and so on. But he was very open to just sort of the general he was a real generalist. And he said, You know, that’s fine. If you want to study this, I cannot help you. Here’s the rope, go hang yourself. And actually, what I did was I went to the US, I went to Brown University, where the father of where the science of smells psychologically speaking was being studied was, I learned from him, I went to international flavors and fragrances in New Jersey, I got all the materials for my research, I went to the University of Pennsylvania, where there were other researchers that I met with to sort of learn methodology and technique. And, you know, the the IFF people used to well, we still have this joke that they thought Who is this crazy Canadian graduate soon, who shows up literally on our doorstep? I mean, I called ahead of time, but says like, you know, show me how you do stuff. Like, can you give me some smells? Anyhow, I basically got lucky putting a paradigm together and protocol. And my, my PhD research was looking at the relationship between smell and emotional memory, and kind of the rest is history. But it was definitely a very bumpy path. And I was told multiple times that, you know, by professors in the department while I was, you know, getting ready to be finished, that, you know, well, you’re not going to be able to make a career out of this, you know, really, you should do something else, though, think about something else for your postdoc, you know, this is really not supportive of that this was going to be successful. And at some level, they were right. No, the sense of smell is not a big area of draw from the academic world. And at that time, too, I just thought all I’m doing is going into academia. I want to be a professor and that’s, that’s it. But You say it’s not a big draw. Don’t they use smells now for recovered memories. Don’t they use that in a way to help people remember things? But not in an academic clinical setting. So there is I mean, clinically, I think that there is that, but from an academic perspective, and from a pure research perspective, I mean, for instance, vision is very highly studied academically, you know, hearing to, to a certain degree, the other senses less so, and smell is probably the bottom of the barrel. I mean, I’m a co author on currently, it’s the leading sensation perception textbook for college students, and know, the chapter on smelling the chapter on taste, or at the end. And it’s kind of a joke, you know, if you’re a professor teaching this, it’s like, okay, you know, well, we go do go through the semester. And while we might or might not get to those chapters at the end, yeah. So it’s still considered not very important.
Dr. Russell Strickland 25:44
Again, it just seems to me like there are, from what I’ve seen, and I obviously haven’t studied this the way you have at all, but it seems like there are applications and where there are applications there, you know, the theorists need to catch up in some sense, so that we can help drive those applications even further.
Dr. Rachel Herz 26:02
Yeah, well, there is theory there, and there are people working on it, but not nearly the amount of people that work on other senses. And actually one of the silver linings, I think to this covid 19 pandemic, is the fact that smell loss is such an important both diagnostic and also has been unfortunately for many a long term symptom, right? That general public awareness of the sense of smell and the importance of the sense of smell has skyrocketed over the last year. And that’s been actually great. For me, it’s great for other researchers who work in this area, because now there is a real interest. And there’s interest both from a basic knowledge perspective, there’s interest at an applied level perspective, there’s interest at a clinical level. So I think this is a real kind of Renaissance moment for the sense of smell. So that’s awesome.
Dr. Russell Strickland 26:47
How are you taking advantage of this moment? And I don’t mean that in the Machiavellian sense, it’s just it’s an opportunity. And how are you guys? Again, exploit has that negative connotation? But how are you exploiting this moment?
Dr. Rachel Herz 27:00
Well, I mean, I’ve written a lot of papers on this topic and working more on it these days than probably I mean, so my research, one of the things that, you know, I could talk about briefly as, as my books being on somewhat different topic show is that I’ve moved around, you know, I haven’t just stayed focused on smell for for my entire career. So that’s disgusting. My second book, my first book was about the sense of smell. And really, at the time, also, I should say, I thought I was leaving academia for good, a variety of things that happened, all basically bad. And I thought, Okay, this is it, I’m done. But I can’t just walk away, I have to have my swan song, you know, I’ve done all this work. So that was what motivated me for my first book. But my second book, which if you want to hear the story, I tell it later about what how I’ve got to writing a book called That’s disgusting. But disgust is actually a taste based emotion. So it’s related to the chemical senses as well. And then I asked them, I realized, well, you know, smell, taste food, everybody loves to eat myself, especially. And so you know, my third book, being about food and eating, and always taking this kind of biological psychological interface and kind of weaving, weaving them together. But so my research is followed along in those different areas as well. And I have, you know, one of the main ways that I actually earn an income is by consulting, so I do a lot of consulting for companies in smell, taste, and flavor, also some legal work as an expert witness, because so few people have this kind of expertise. And then I do you know, collaborations where I may be a consultant on a grant, where I’m working, you know, as the smell expert, as it were so keeping up research in that regard. But this past year, I’ve actually, I’m actually the guest editor for a special issue of the journal called Brain Sciences. And the topic is advances in human olfactory perception. So you know, getting all the latest research on that and really providing a forum for that, I’ve also embarked on my own research, I think I was a little bit crazy to do. So since I don’t have a lab anymore. I mean, I’m affiliated both with Brown University and Boston College. So I was able to use the that the data pools from there or the subject pools from there, but I don’t have a lab where I can be, you know, working on things, but I did a bit and now that that would really help this year, since everything was virtual, but I ended up doing an online study. And I’m really excited about the results of that and working on other papers. So you know, taking advantage and actually the book that’s percolating, is is about smell again. So you know, I’ve coming back to my roots, I’m very much more invigorated by it these days. That’s another thing
Dr. Russell Strickland 29:31
So what they can take away from this. And what they can easily see from your smile as you talk about all this stuff, is that once you have your degree, there’s so many opportunities available for you to kind of choose your path. And people out there might think smell is the most boring thing in the world. That’s fine. You don’t have to do that. But choose to do that and that you enjoy it so much. And it’s something that motivates you. And they get to do that too. When they when they finish their degree. They get To choose what lights the fire for them, and that’s so cool.
Dr. Rachel Herz 30:04
Well, I think the passion is really the key. I mean, that’s what I realized, while I was doing my master’s thesis work is that the passion was not there. And it’s so hard to keep on going, when all the difficulty of it is going on, you have everything else and just to like, push yourself through. And I realized, you know, life is too short. I can’t just spend the next four or five years doing this. Yeah. It’s really important.
Dr. Russell Strickland 30:27
Yeah, it did. To know, well, what I tell folks is basically make sure you’re keeping an eye on your real goals, like whatever that is, if you know that you’re gonna be doing research for the next 20, 30, 40 years, make sure it’s something you’re interested in. If you know that you’re going to be you know, moving on and doing something else in industry or working in some other way. Make sure you’re figuring out how to get to that goal, whatever your real goal is, keep that in mind, because so many people, they approach school in his nose to the grindstone head down, you know, just keep moving forward, kind of mentality. And it’s important to, you know, look up and look around and figure out where you want to go. Because you’re going to get there one way or the other, you just might not like where you are, if you if you don’t plan and you’re not intentional about it.
Dr. Rachel Herz 31:11
Right. And just something I know that you, you are all about the dissertation. So the add in everything, but I mean, I knew someone when I was in graduate school who was at that stage, and she I don’t even know if she ever did finished, I feel like you do all this work. And all you have to do is write that dissertation at the end, like just, you know, put the cherry on top because but the thing is, it can be so hard if what you’ve been doing has really not floated your boat if you’ve really felt dragged down by it. And so that’s where I think it is, even though I do agree with you and having the eye on the prize, really important. But also to have some joy in it, I think is also really key. Because the motivation to get through the writing process can be really hard.
Dr. Russell Strickland 31:52
It can be difficult for folks, and a lot of folks complained about guidance and direction and accountability and things like that. Those are things that are a lot of dissertation programs, they’re just completely gone. It’s up to you, you you create something that’s worthy, will give you the seal of approval. You don’t we don’t care, though. So that’s that’s difficult for a lot of students as well. But yes, the motivation, keeps you moving through that process. Now, when we were talking a little bit earlier, I definitely want to talk about the books. But you mentioned that you’re that you had done the TEDx talk a while back. And that that was an interesting experience to tell us about how that came about and how it was a little different than what you thought it was going to be.
Dr. Rachel Herz 32:33
Okay, great. Yeah. So this was actually the hardest thing that I think I’ve ever done, certainly as an adult.
Dr. Russell Strickland 32:39
PHD.
Dr. Rachel Herz 32:40
Yeah, it was it was hard. But it was shorter than that. But it was harder than but so so what this was was actually so as a function of doing these books, and my most recent one had come out “Why You Eat What You Eat,” I was I get interviewed by NPR a lot, which is great, because NPR, a lot of people buy books, listen to NPR, a lot of people are interested in intellectual pursuits, listen to NPR. And someone had heard me on NPR. And they thought, oh, that she would be a great person for our TEDx division, which is in Natick, Massachusetts. And so they called me up and they said, Would you be interested? And I said, Sure, this was like a life goal dream to do a TED talk, actually. But they were very, very strict and serious about I had I had to audition. So it was just because this one guy said, you know, would you like to do this? And I said, Yes, didn’t mean it was happening. I auditioned in front of about eight people or so. And then they had their meeting. And then they decided I was okay, that they could go forward with me. But it wasn’t just like, okay, you know, you’re going to do a talk on whatever See you in a few months, it was this extremely serious, rigorous experience where I was paired up with both an academic and an acting coach, first of all, then I had to work out what my entire talk was going to be. And it was 18 minutes of speaking. And I was going to be talking about all different kinds of things. And I went to one version, they’re like, No, no, this isn’t good. And I thought also, learning how to write Popular Science is taking complex topics, and then being able to translate them into digestible, easy to understand ways. And I thought I could do that. So then I have, you know, my talk is prepared. No, no, no, no, we don’t like this, or they take that out or no, so there was a lot of defeat experience doing it. And then there was the acting part of it. No, I think, Oh, I can give talks. I mean, I’ve given hundreds of talks, you know, to all different kinds of audiences, you don’t have to tell me how to get a talk, well know that the TED thing is really, really serious. On top of that, I don’t know if anyone knows that that red circle. The red circle is really important. You can’t step out of the red circle, by the way. And there was while I was doing this, just to sort of ease the pain. There’s this spoof of a TED talk that was on YouTube. That was absolutely hilarious that I would watch again and again and again to make myself feel better because I was like, really getting to the point of why in the world did I say yes to this? This is awful and I’m doing nothing but spending all My time on this. So let me just say that this started in October. And the TED talk was at the end of January, where the real work started, where it really started getting serious was the end of December. And basically all of January until the talk, I, my life was nothing but preparing for this. And what I had to do was both memorize and act out 18 minutes. And I literally, I was told, you know, when I was doing the I think, oh, you can’t do grapevines. Like, you know, I’m not What are you talking about doing grapevines, like I’m walking across the stage doing this. Oh, and the way you stand, it’s actually called a sit like, you can’t stand like this, you have to like all kinds of crazy things that you don’t even know you’re doing. someone watching you and go oh, by the way, when you do X, you know, don’t do this. So you’re it’s like unlearning all these basically instinct habits that you’ve had for your whole life. Plus, this memorization and memorizing with like, acting attitude, and like really exaggerating all kinds of things that feel really stupid to exaggerate. And the analogy I make is like, you know, if you’ve ever been made up for stage or being on screen, they put tons of makeup on you, right? You look at yourself in the mirror, and you think you look ridiculous, but on camera, it looks normal. Like That was the whole idea with a super overacting out everything that you’re going to be saying. Anyway, so but I thought this memorization part was really what got me because I hadn’t done more than memorize a shopping list since I was now in grade six or something.
Dr. Russell Strickland 36:21
And we don’t do that anymore.
Dr. Rachel Herz 36:22
Yeah, I’m like, how in the world. So I would try it, I’m doing all these acting techniques. I tried like doing, you know, a memorization palace and writing notes. And anyway, none of this was really working all that well. And I went to my dermatologist, you know, for an annual and I’m telling her about this, like, I’m so excited. But this is like the worst thing ever. And her assistant was in the office. And she said, if you want to be able to memorize something, make it like a song. And listen and take yourself like kind of singing the song. And then repeat along with it, like you’re singing a song like be listened to on the radio, and listen to it again and again and again. And like sing or say the words along with it until you can do the whole song by yourself. And that is literally what I did. Like I would be walking my dog listen to this on Actually, my dog used to run out of the room, when I would then be at home, like doing this rehearsal. And she’s like, Oh, no, there she goes, the crazy lady starting again. And she’d bolt out of the room. But anyway, that actually miraculously really worked. And but it was, it was like an all consuming experience. And it was extremely, extremely rewarding. But like I said, it was really difficult. And, you know, afterwards,
Dr. Russell Strickland 37:38
this multimodal learning, right, you’re you’re you’re learning this level, and then you’re putting this texture on top of it. And then presumably, I mean, did they give you strict blocking for the TED talk like physical actions as well, because that’s another thing that often punctuates that I remember, gosh, what was it, it was some silly little thing, like my daughter was getting ready for her final, like the state final test in math. And I don’t remember exactly what it was, is something about adding fractions or something. And there was some point that she kept forgetting. And so I stressed You have to do it like this. And when she started doing, this is the second step, she would remember it, she would never forget it at that point. But we did that over and over again. It’s just like this. And I don’t remember what the thing was, it was something about adding fractions. So it was it was checking to see if the things were the same or something like that. But But yeah, that’s that’s what it was. Oh, so it was when you when you’re looking at fractions, you want to add two fractions, you to figure out what you multiply by because you can always multiply by one, to figure out what you multiply by, you look at the other side, you take the two fractions and go look at the other one. That’s what you multiply by so that you can start adding them together. And so that’s what we always say is look at the other side. And once we started doing that thing, she got it before that she kept forgetting and she would want to multiply by the thing that was on the bottom of the fraction she was looking at, like that’s not gonna help you. But that explaining didn’t do it, it was almost pounding into her head like figuratively, to get your head would look at the other side is what got it. So really interesting the way memory works and the little little things you can do to trick yourself into remember,
Dr. Rachel Herz 39:16
I didn’t have any of those, like I didn’t have any of those physical cues to remind myself but I definitely had, you know, I was schooled on move your arm like this, don’t move your arm like that, like, you know, express this way over here.
Dr. Russell Strickland 39:29
Here’s how you can move you can you can move anywhere you want to as long as it’s this way, right? Or do you have any color you want, as long as it’s black? Make sure to stay in that red circle. So I know that I’ve known that for a while and other people do that. I wonder how different that experience would be if they they didn’t do that they let them move around, because I’ve seen some really, really good TED Talks, but they’re literally constrained to this circle. They do that for production reasons, right? Like they just don’t have enough cameras to follow people around basically right?
