Over the past few decades, the food industry has increasingly leaned on the concept of molecular gastronomy—approaching cooking from the perspective of chemistry. Erinn Dady’s career went in the opposite direction where her love for cooking reignited her passion in science.

Growing up in Urbana-Champaign, Dady had always been fascinated by the natural world. “I loved observing insects and I would go traipsing through the woods or the prairies around here to see what I could find under the logs,” Dady said.

Plants produce a range of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds that influence their interactions with the world around them. In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign investigated how the type and amount of these VOCs change based on different features of tomato plants.