Awarded in 2025
Home Department: Electrical Engineering
Faculty Advisors: Todd Coleman (Bioengineering) and Eric Stice (Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences)

Research Title: From Scent to Solution: Developing Naturalistic and Dynamic Training Approaches to Address Eating Disorders through Olfactory Food Cue Sensitivity

Olfaction, or our sense of smell, plays a powerful role in how we experience food: shaping preferences, memories, and emotions. This is because olfaction is closely linked to the limbic system, the brain region involved in emotion and memory. Alisa’s research explores how the brain responds to food-related smells and how these neural signatures differ in individuals with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Ultimately, her work aims to develop more naturalistic and effective interventions that incorporate the power of scent to support eating disorder recovery.