UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — John Hayes, associate professor of food science in the College of Agricultural Sciences, recently received the Barry Jacobs Memorial Award for Research in the Psychophysics of Human Taste and Smell from the Association for Chemoreception Sciences.

Psychophysics is a discipline within experimental psychology that focuses on the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations they elicit. In his research, Hayes, who is director of Penn State's Sensory Evaluation Center, uses psychophysics to study chemosensation, genetics, food choice and the optimization of oral and nonoral drug delivery systems.

Founded in 1978, the Association for Chemoreception Sciences — known as AChemS — is an international organization whose members work on advancing scientific knowledge about smell and taste.

For his award, Hayes delivered an invited lecture during the President Symposium of the association's annual meeting in Bonito Springs, Florida, and received a cash prize. His talk was titled "Using Psychophysics to Understand Perception of Real Foods."