Leah is a postdoctoral researcher in the Delarue Lab. She investigates the intersection of language and human responses to food, including sensory perceptions and emotions. She has expertise in sensory science, text mining, data science, and natural language processing. With this expertise, she aims to continue developing new computational tools to extract meaningful insights about people from the way they talk about food and meaningful insights about food from the way people talk about it. If you have questions about language, preference, and sensory perceptions, she's always interested to hear them.

Leah received her PhD in Food Science and Technology from Virginia Tech in 2022, and before that she was a lab manager at the USDA-ARS Food Science Research Unit investigating pickle flavor and texture. As a hobby, she knits, spins, and crochets, and it's only a matter of time before she learns to weave and accidentally buys a hobby flock of sheep.