Dupuis and Herz meet regularly to discuss their work, and Dupuis has been a guest lecturer in Herz’s course, The Sense of Smell: Perception, Cognition, Health and Technology. 

“To get to have talks with her and to run some of my ideas by her has been incredible,” Dupuis said. 

Dupuis said that Herz’s encouragement was critical as she developed a graduate student work group and a reading group, two international groups that convene monthly to discuss research in smell studies.

“The groups have grown far beyond anything I could have expected,” she said. “I’ve made lifelong friends through the community, and it’s been so cool to see different people’s work on smell and give advice and share reading recommendations.”

Delving into ‘close smelling’ on the page 

In her research at Brown, Dupuis focuses primarily on how smell is depicted in French-language literary works.

“We have a lot more words in the French language to talk about smells than we do in the English language, and usually there’s a lot of figurative language, like metaphors or similes involved with smell description,” she said. 

Her dissertation, which she plans to defend in Spring 2026, explores references to smells in 20^th- and 21^st-century French and Francophone dystopian novels. Many of the odors she is writing about are unpleasant, including those related to environmental change. Her main argument is that dystopia is a “very olfactory genre.”

“It’s a type of literature that is very smelly because there’s a lot of change, like a forest fire or water that has risen to a high level,” she said. “We tend to notice smells the most when they have changed, and we tend to become habituated to the smells of our everyday life.” 

During her time at Brown, Dupuis has also developed a methodology similar to the practice of “close reading,” which involves careful analysis of text, concentrating on how writing is used to convey smell.

“The method involves looking at things like how a description of smell relates to the character development or the description of a place,” she said. 

In her third year at Brown, Dupuis completed a doctoral certificate in collaborative humanities through the Cogut Institute for the Humanities that enabled her to take courses with students from various departments and explore her research topic from different perspectives. As part of the program, she took a course called Technologies of Memory, which examines modes of capturing memory in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The course inspired her to create a panel discussion at a conference in 2024, which in turn led to an invitation from her publisher, Vernon Press, to edit a book on the topic. 

“The book is probably one of the top things I’m most proud of having done during my Ph.D.,” she said. “It is one of the first volumes to bring together sensory studies and memory studies from a variety of perspectives. Through these chapters, we’re really showing that a lot of our memory comes from sensory perception, and a lot of our memories are linked to the senses, where you can smell something and remember something of your past.” 

Dupuis is co-organizing a conference titled “The Odorous Object: On the Materiality of Scent,” expected to be held in February at the Cogut Institute on Brown’s campus. The conference will include formal research presentations as well as a creative exhibition for those who wish to present a design for an olfactory object or device, such as a perfume bottle or sample. 

Teaching French to undergraduates, from beginner’s level to advanced, has been another important part of Dupuis’ experience at Brown.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to teach my native language and tell them about what Quebec is like,” she said. “And I love when students come with questions and need advice about things like applying to graduate school.”

In 2024-25, as she was conducting research in Paris — supported by a fellowship from the Society of French and Francophone Teachers of America — Dupuis designed a perfume workshop for Brown in Paris students, led a “smell walk” in the city and facilitated discussions about the importance of smell. She is planning a similar workshop for Brown undergraduates in Spring 2026. 

Dupuis said the support she has received from faculty, staff and peers at Brown has inspired her to create educational opportunities for others.  

“All of the resources and all of the encouragement that I’ve received, and my department’s support of me, have just been incredible,” she said. “They always say ‘yes,’ and that’s not a given in all academic settings.”