The 2026 Odor Conference in Bloomington, Minnesota, brought together a lively community of practitioners, researchers, and industry partners for a week of focused technical sessions, practical case studies, and productive networking. Over 160 attendees enjoyed wonderful weather while exploring advances in odor science, monitoring, modeling, policy, and control.
The opening keynote was delivered by Susan Schiffman, Adjunct Professor in the Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina/North Carolina State University (UNC/NCSU). Susan has published at least 185 papers on the topic. Her earliest odor-related publication is likely this one from 1974 ("Physicochemical Correlates of Olfactory Quality" in Science), meaning she has been working in the field for over 52 years.
I would like to thank the organizers for bringing Susan (and Troy) to this event. She is a superhero in the odor world and a key reference across both this and the previous century. She began by discussing several key figures in the field of odor, including the work of Dravnieks and his early efforts to develop electronic noses to detect explosives during the Vietnam War. She had the opportunity to work with him and shared several engaging stories about that work. Her talk also covered many other “odor pioneers” and their stories. There is no space in this post to cover more, but as a small gift, here is a two-minute video of her keynote.
The visit to the Metropolitan Council Facilities took place the day before the conference. The tour included visits to the Council’s maintenance and Seneca Water Resource Recovery facilities, where attendees saw an on-site olfactometer and learned how the Council regularly measures odor in-house. Wastewater utilities typically hire external firms for odor assessments, so it was a bit unexpected to visit one that had an actual olfactometric lab onsite.
The conference ran multiple parallel tracks so participants could follow topics that best matched their work. Sessions included Policy and Community Perceptions, Ambient Odor Assessment, Regulations and Odor Management, Wastewater Treatment Processes, Laboratory Odor Panels and Chemical Analysis, Dispersion Modeling for Optimizing Odor Control, Innovative Odor Control Technologies, Odor Control System Optimization, and Community-Centered Odor Control. Again, there is no space in this post to describe each presentation. The quality of the talks was very high and we all learned different points of views and approaches from each expert. Check the program for more information about the topics presented.
Again, we organized a “Run with Carlos” activity, in this case, a scenic run around the beautiful Long Meadow Lake Unit of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The editor of this website together with Inken Mello, Vaughan Harshman, PE, MBA, Benjamin Wallis, EIT, and Eric Compton enjoyed a great run full of lakes, forrests and luckily this time, not angry geese. We will be doing this again at the upcoming NOSE 2026 conference, so be sure to register there too!
Many sponsors made this conference possible: BIOREM, Onterris, Hartzell, Detection Instruments, Daniel Company, ECS, BioAir Solutions, St. Croix Sensory (VeSenses), Xylem, AmbiLabs, NORIT Activated Carbon, Syft Technologies, Trinity Consultants, Perry Fiberglass Products, and LambTech.
This conference was a success due to the commitment of a dedicated volunteer committee and staff. Special thanks to Angie Wanger, Inken Mello, Michael McGinley, Ted Bowie, Raymond Porter, and Tony van der Vooren, as well as Paige Parise and Jessica Keefer for their outstanding support and logistics. They organized a great event, and we are confident that everyone had a great time. Here a nice photo of them.
If you find this article interesting, you might be also interested in these articles:
- Published the provisional program of the upcoming A&WMA odor conference
- A&WMA Announces their first Odour Management Conference: Embracing Global Perspectives
- WEF/A&WMA Odors and Air Pollutants 2010, March 21 – 24, 2010 will be hold in Charlotte, North Carolina
