Linda Bartoshuk, Ph.D., an internationally known researcher in the chemical senses of taste and smell, has been appointed a presidential endowed professor of community dentistry and behavioral sciences in the College of Dentistry. Bartoshuk, who first joined the UF faculty as a visiting professor in the College of Public Health and Health Professions last year, comes to UF from Yale University. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the only female NAS member at UF.

Bartoshuk's research, which explores the genetic variations in taste perception and how taste perception affects overall health, will complement care provided through the UF McKnight Brain Institute's Center for Taste and Smell, housed in the College of Dentistry. Bartoshuk was the first to discover that burning mouth syndrome, a condition predominantly experienced by postmenopausal women, is caused by damage to the taste buds at the front of the tongue and is not a psychosomatic condition, as many believed. Center experts treat patients suffering from smell and taste disorders or loss of taste due to disease or cancer therapy.