Monique Smeets

Monique Smeets holds a chair in Sensory Systems in Social Context at the Department of Psychology at the Social, Health & Organizational Psychology section at Utrecht University.

Her background is in experimental and cognitive psychology (graduate degree from University of Amsterdam; PhD from Utrecht University) with a specific interest in chemosensory and cross-modal perception in social contexts.

Between 1996 and 2002 she gained post-doctoral experience  in visual neuroscience working with Prof Stephen Kosslyn at Harvard University (supported by a Niels Stensen research fellowship), followed by fellowships at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge and at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia under the supervision of Dr. Pamela Dalton.

Between 2011 and 2024 Monique held a dual affiliation, also working as science leader Consumer Science at Unilever R&D. Here, she dedicated herself to applying academic psychological science to drive impactful innovations that promote consumer wellbeing and sustainability. After rejoining academia, she now explores collaborative opportunities between social science and industry R&D within innovation ecosystems, while continuing her research on the effects of social context on perception, emotion, and wellbeing.