Jonas Olofsson#

Professor Olofsson’s research and teaching involves perception, memory and emotion, with a focus on how the sense of smell, olfaction, affects these processes. His research team investigates whether olfaction provides an early marker for dementia, why it is so hard to name smells, if smell-based video games can be used for brain training, and how odors might affect social processes, using a variety of behavioral and brain activity methods.

Bio

Jonas Olofsson received his PhD in 2008 at Umeå University and was appointed as docent at Stockholm University in 2009. He conducted research at Northwestern University (Chicago, 2009-2011), The Scripps Research Institute (San Diego, 2005-2006) and at Karolinska Insitutet (Stockholm, 2009). Since 2012, he was affiliated with the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala. Since 2016, he has been adjunct associate professor at New York University School of Medicine. His research is supported by the Swedish Research Council, The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences, and by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

Dissertation

Odor identification in aging and dementia: Influences of cognition and the ApoE gene. Doctoral dissertation from the Department of Psychology, Umeå University. ISBN 978-91-7264-652-0

Awards and honors

• Wallenberg Academy Fellow (since 2016), a carreer programme that provides long-term funding for the most promising young researchers of all disciplines.
  
• Fellow of the Young Academy of Sweden (since 2015), an independent, cross-disciplinary forum for some of the most promising young researchers in Sweden across all academic disciplines.
  
• Fellow of Pro Futura Scientia (since 2012), a research programme for especially promising young researchers in the humanities and social sciences.
  
• Recipient of the 2010 prize to young researchers in Psychology by the Swedish National Committee for Psychological Sciences (a branch of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) after receiving nominations from Umeå and Stockholm Universities.
  
• The Fulker award (2009) for best article in the journal Behavior Genetics:
  Olofsson, J.K., Rönnlund, M., Nordin, S., Nilsson, L-G., Nyberg, L., & Larsson, M. (2009). Odor identification deficit as a predictor of five-year global cognitive change: Interactive effects with age and ApoE-e4. Behavior Genetics, 39, 496-503.

Research grants:

• Total value of research grants: 74 million Swedish Krona, SEK (9 million USD), of which 44 million SEK (5 million USD) as main applicant.
• 2021: Jonas Olofsson (PI). Wallenberg Academy Fellowship (5-year prolongation) from the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (3,250,000 SEK granted).
• 2020: Jonas Olofsson (PI). Vad kan doftsinnet lära oss om högre hjärnfunktioner? (What can the sense of smell teach us about higher brain functions?) Consolidator grant from the Swedish Research Council, social sciences and humanities (12,000,000 SEK granted).
• 2019: Jonas Olofsson (PI), Maria Larsson, Jeanette Hällgren, and Pawel Herman. Brain-IT. Research grant from the Swedish e-Science Research Centre (SeRC; 2,000,000 SEK granted).
• 2016: Jonas Olofsson (PI). What the brain knows from using our nose. Wallenberg Academy Fellowship from the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (to the value of about 11,500,000 SEK).
• 2015: Marco Tullio Liuzza (PI), Jonas Olofsson and Torun Lindholm. Lukten av Fördom (The Smell of Prejudice). Research project grant from the Swedish Research Council, social sciences and humanities (4,400,000 SEK granted).
• 2015: Jonas Olofsson (PI) and Simon Niedenthal. NoseWise: A video game platform for smell-based brain training. Research project grant from the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (6,144,000 SEK granted).
• 2015: Jonas Olofsson (PI), Francisco Lacerda, Håkan Fischer. Stockholm University Brain Imaging Center
• (SUBIC). Ansökan om workshop och symposium under 2016. Strategic research grant from the Board of Human Science, Stockholm University (188,390 SEK granted).
• 2014: Maria Larsson (PI), Jonas Olofsson, et al. Our unique sense of smell. Research programme grant awarded by The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (26,000,000 SEK granted).
• 2012: Jonas Olofsson (PI). Pro Futura Scientia VII research fellowship (to the value of about 4,950,000 SEK) for particularly promising young researchers, from The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.
• 2012: Jonas Olofsson (PI). Träna den åldrande hjärnan med dofter (Training the aging brain with scents).
• Research project grant from the Swedish Research Council, social sciences and humanities (3,000,000 SEK granted).
• 2009: Jonas Olofsson (PI). Kognitiva och neurobiologiska undersökningar av luktnedsättningar som markörer för risken att utveckla Alzheimers sjukdom (Cognitive and neurobiological investigations of olfactory deficits as markers for developing Alzheimers’ disease). International post-doctoral fellowship from the Swedish Research Council (704,826 SEK granted).
• 2008: Stefan Wiens (PI), Jonas Olofsson, et al. Effects of anxiolytics on emotional memory. Research Grant from the Berzelii fund of the Stockholm Brain Institute (750,000 SEK granted).
• 2005: Jonas Olofsson (PI). Habituation of emotional facial expressions as measured by event-related brain potentials. Research fellowship from the Scandinavian-American Foundation (130,000 SEK granted).