O’Shaughnessy Ventures Backs Researcher Teaching Machines to Smell
By Matt Swayne · · 2 min read
Insider Brief
- O’Shaughnessy Ventures awarded Alistair Pernigo a fellowship to advance technology that allows machines to detect and interpret chemical signals.
- Pernigo will spend 12 months developing his sensing prototype and testing it with academic collaborators for potential robotics, industrial safety and biosecurity applications.
- The MIT Media Lab research affiliate co-authored SmellNet, a public smell-recognition dataset containing about 828,000 data points covering 50 substances and 43 mixtures.
- Image: Photo by Elly Johnson
PRESS RELEASE — O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC (OSV), an investment firm that empowers creators, has awarded an O’Shaughnessy Fellowship to Alistair Pernigo, a researcher and entrepreneur based in San Francisco, California.
Pernigo will use the fellowship to research how machines can detect and interpret the chemical signals in their surroundings. Over the next 12 months, he plans to further develop his working sensing prototype and validate its performance through controlled experiments with academic collaborators. His broader ambition is to make chemical perception a practical capability for machines, with potential applications in robotics, industrial safety and biosecurity.
Pernigo is a research affiliate in the Multisensory Intelligence group at the MIT Media Lab, where he works on machine olfaction and molecular sensing. He co-authored the SmellNet paper, which introduces a public dataset for smell recognition covering 50 substances and 43 mixtures across roughly 828,000 data points. The paper was published at the International Conference on Learning Representations in 2026. He is also a co-founder of Timeless Way, a science and technology lab studying how living and engineered systems perceive and respond to their environments.
OSV’s founder and CEO, Jim O’Shaughnessy, commented, “Alistair’s approach to the stubborn problem of training machines to smell may just be the thing that finally unlocks it for researchers. We’re delighted to get the chance to support his work.”
“Being part of the OSV community means a lot to me,” said Pernigo. “It gives me the support and momentum to take our work further: making chemistry a native sense for machines. I’m excited to build alongside people who recognize strange ideas as early signals of what comes next.”
About the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships Program
Launched in 2023, the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships program discovers and empowers the world’s boldest creatives, builders and researchers. Fellows receive a grant of up to $100,000 and gain access to OSV’s network of founders, investors and experts.
Pernigo is the twenty-second fellow announced in 2026. More information about previous fellows is available at OSV’s website.
Applications for the O’Shaughnessy Fellowships are now closed and will reopen on Jan. 1, 2027. Individuals interested in applying can do so via OSV’s website.
