Linda Bartoshuk

University of Florida William James Fellow Award Linda Bartoshuk is an international leader in taste research and a pioneer in developing new methods of psychophysical scaling. Her brilliant work has focused on the genetic variations in taste perception, and how that perception affects overall health. Bartoshuk was the first scientist to discover that burning mouth syndrome, a condition experienced mainly by postmenopausal women, is the result of damage to the taste buds at the front of the tongue and not, as was once commonly believed, a psychosomatic condition. But perhaps she is best known for the discovery of supertasters — individuals who have more taste buds than most people.