Rachel Sarah Herz is a Canadian and American psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist, recognized for her research on the psychology of smell.

[1][2] In 1994, she received the Ajinomoto USA Inaugural Award for Promising Young Scientists and joined the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia as an assistant member.

Her work examines with how language and emotion can affect odor perception and her laboratory has empirically demonstrated the first instance of olfactory illusions created by words alone.

Theoretically guided by perspectives from cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology, Herz uses psychophysical, self-report, cognitive-behavioral and neurological techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to investigate these topics.

[14] Herz serves on several advisory boards and councils, including the Smell and Taste Association of North America, the UK charity for smell loss, Fifth Sense [24], the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (reference: http://achems.org/web/about-committees.php) and OVRTechnology https://ovrtechnology.com/about/ Her research on sensory memory was on display from 2001 to 2006 in a traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibit called "Brain: The world inside your head".