Chandler Burr is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, and museum curator. Since December 2010 he has been curator of olfactory art at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City.http://www.basenotes.net/content/626-New-York-s-Museum-of-Art-and-Design-to-open-dedicated-fragrance-department-curated-by-Chandler-Burr?s=3185ed804b468be3cd7a1aa8169b30d3

Burr was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 and raised in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 and graduated from Principia College

Principia College

Principia College is a four-year private co-educational liberal arts college in Elsah, Illinois. The campus sits on bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River between Alton and Grafton, located about thirty miles north of St. Louis. In 1934, Principia College graduated its first class as a full...

 in Elsah, Illinois

Elsah, Illinois

Elsah is a village in Jersey County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2000 U.S. census, the village had a total population of 673. Cyrus Bunting is the the village's current acting mayor.Elsah is a part of the Metro-East region and the St...

. Burr began his journalism career in 1987 as a stringer

Stringer (journalism)

In journalism, a stringer is a type of freelance journalist or photographer who contributes reports or photos to a news organization on an ongoing basis but is paid individually for each piece of published or broadcast work....

 in The Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...

's Southeast Asia bureau, and later became a Contributing Editor to U.S. News and World Report. Burr has also written for The Atlantic on epidemiology

Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...

 and public health. Burr earned a masters degree in international economics

International economics

International economics is concerned with the effects upon economic activity of international differences in productive resources and consumer preferences and the institutions that affect them...

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies

Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies

The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies , a division of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C., is one of the world's leading and most prestigious graduate schools devoted to the study of international affairs, economics, diplomacy, and policy research and...

 (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins. He lives in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

In 1993, Burr wrote a cover story, "Homosexuality and Biology", for The Atlantic. It became the basis for his first book A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation (1996), which investigated sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

 research. Burr compared the clinical profiles of sexual orientation and handedness

Handedness

Handedness is a human attribute defined by unequal distribution of fine motor skills between the left and right hands. An individual who is more dexterous with the right hand is called right-handed and one who is more skilled with the left is said to be left-handed...

, writing that the best analogy for homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 is left-handedness. A Separate Creation was published by Hyperion

Hyperion (publisher)

Hyperion Books is a general-interest book publishing part of the Disney-ABC Television Group, a division of The Walt Disney Company, established in 1991. Hyperion publishes general-interest fiction and non-fiction books for adults under the following imprints: ABC Daytime Press, ESPN Books,...

, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, and its argument that sexual orientation

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

 is inborn prompted a call by Southern Baptists to boycott Disney films and theme parks.

In 1996 The Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...

 published Burr's article "Why Conservatives Should Embrace the Gay Gene". It argued that scientific research that in Burr's view demonstrated that sexual orientation is biologically determined supports a conservative view of human nature.

Burr's The Emperor of Scent, published in 2003, tells how the French-Italian scientist Luca Turin

Luca Turin

Luca Turin is a biophysicist with a long-standing interest in the sense of smell, the art of perfume, and the fragrance industry.-Vibration theory of olfaction:...

 originated the theory about the functioning of the sense of smell. As a result, The New Yorker proposed that Burr describe the creation of a perfume. Burr's March 2005 New Yorker article recounted Jean-Claude Ellena

Jean-Claude Ellena

Jean-Claude Ellena is a perfumer or "nose." He has the business and practice of perfumery in his blood. At an early age, he picked roses with his grandmother to sell to perfumers, and, in fact, his father, brother, and daughter are perfumers...

's year-long creation, in Paris and Grasse, of Hermès

Hermès

Hermès International S.A., or simply Hermès is a French high fashion house established in 1837, today specializing in leather, lifestyle accessories, perfumery, luxury goods, and ready-to-wear...

' Un Jardin sur le Nil.

Burr's The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris & New York, published in 2008, describes Ellena's creation of "Nil" in Paris, and Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker is an American film, television, and theater actress and producer.She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City , for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards...

's creation of "Lovely", in New York City under the license aegis

Aegis

An aegis is a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority or the holder of a protective shield signifying the same, such as a bag-like garment that contained a shield. Sometimes the garment and the shield are merged, with a small...

 of the perfume corporation Coty

Coty

Coty may refer to:*François Coty , perfume maker and founder of Solidarité Française and Coty, Inc.*René Coty , President of France*Coty, Inc., a beauty products manufacturer*Coty Award...

.Burr’s novel, You Or Someone Like You, was published by Ecco in summer 2009.

From August 2006 until the end of 2010, Burr was perfume critic of The New York Times. His column, "Scent Notes", appeared first in T, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

' style magazine, and later on the Times’ blog. Stefano Tonchi

Stefano Tonchi

Stefano Tonchi is the editor of W. He was previously editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Having previously worked at Esquire and L'Uomo Vogue, Tonchi's editorial roots are in what he calls "niche" publications, he revealed in a 2007 interview in 032c magazine...

, style editor of The New York Times Sunday Magazine and T, was quoted: “The Times will be the first to cover the fragrance industry and perfume in the way it does movies, books, and theater."

Since December 2010 Burr has been curator of the olfactory art at the Museum of Art and Design in New York City.

In December 2010, Burr left The Times to become Curator of the Center – later changed to Department – of Olfactory Art at the Museum of Arts and Design. The Museum stated that Burr, who joined the Museum's staff, would create “exhibitions and programs that illuminate scent as an art form. The first exhibition planned, The Art of Scent, 1889-2011, will allow visitors to experience ten seminal works by some of the greatest scent artists of the late-19th, 20th and early-21st centuries…[such as] Jean-Claude Ellena, Ernest Beaux

Ernest Beaux

Ernest Beaux , was a Russian and French perfumer best known for creating Chanel No. 5, perhaps the world's most famous perfume.- Family background :...

, and Jacques Cavallier….”

His first novel, You Or Someone Like You, was published by Ecco Press

Ecco Press

Ecco Press is a publishing imprint of HarperCollins, who acquired it in 1999. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company. Until 1994 the press was the publisher of the literary magazine Antaeus.- External links :**...

in summer 2009.

Burr conducts a series of perfume dinners around the world.

External links

• Burr article in The New Yorker (the making of the new Hermès scent)
• Chandler Burr Profile Page at Bold Type Magazine Interview, author reading, and excerpt from "The Emperor of Scent"; plus Burr's Top Ten List of Perfumes.
• Narrative Magazine (fiction excerpt)
• An interview with Qu3stions
• Official website