I obtained my PhD at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh and moved to The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, USA to investigate the interplay between smell and instinct.

Smell and taste have been prevalent in my entire career, therefore I am delighted to be an Advisory Board member for Fifth Sense. In 2010, I joined the faculty of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge.

My team studied genes that enabled mammals to detect, interpret and respond to their environment with an appropriate behaviour and was particularly focused on the sense of smell. In 2015 I combined my role at Sanger with an Assistant membership at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, USA.

In 2016, I left academia to take up my post as Head of Research for the Waltham Petcare Science Institute – the global research centre for Mars Petcare where I continue research into the senses of smell and taste, leading a multidisciplinary team of over 90 scientists and veterinarians that strive to improve the health and wellbeing of cats, dogs, horses and fish, and the people who own them