Indian duo wins Ig Nobel for 'smelly shoe' research
Indian researchers Vikash Kumar and Sarthak Mittal just won the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in engineering design for their quirky research on how stinky shoes affect people's experience with shoe racks.
Their work highlights how sensory details—like smell—can impact the user experience of everyday products.
Their study on shoe smell was published in 2022
Their 2022 study treated bad shoe smells as a real ergonomic problem, showing that ignoring these little annoyances can hurt comfort and usability.
By tackling something most of us just put up with, they demonstrated that thoughtful design goes beyond looks or function—it's about how things feel (and smell) in real life.
This is India's 22nd Ig Nobel, adding to its streak of fun but meaningful science.
Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate quirky research
The Ig Nobel Prizes, streamed from Harvard University, honor research that's both clever and a little offbeat—from why pasta sauce clumps to what city animals eat.
It's proof that even the weirdest questions can lead to discoveries worth talking about.