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FEC Club wins the 2021 GPSA Excellence Award for Registered Student Organizations (RSO)

 

Photo of FEC Club awardThe Graduate Student and Professional Organization (GPSA) at WSU has voted to present the 2021 GPSA Excellence Award to the FEC club.

The Food and Engineering Club is comprised of graduate student members from the Food Engineering program and one faculty advisor (Dr. Shyam Sablani). These students conduct research in advanced thermal and non-thermal food technologies as well as polymeric packaging technologies to help the food industry address challenges of increasing consumer demand for safe, nutritious, and high-quality food products.

Congratulations to the FEC and Dr. Sablani!

 

Current officers are:

President:  Yonas Gezahegn
Vice President: Zhi Qu
Secretary: Yoon-Ki Hong
Treasurer: Yucen Xie
Professional Development: Sivapratha Sivabalan
Social and Outreach: Sicheng Sun
CAHNRS Senate: Xu Zhou

Faculty Advisor:  Dr. Shyam Sablani

 

Raspberry muffins may be in your future

March 01, 2021  |  WSU Insider

Richland, WA

Photo of Raspberry muffinWashington State University scientists have figured out a way to treat raspberries before they’re frozen so that they maintain their structure when thawed.

The tart little berries are very delicate and freezing damages their cells. They turn to mush when baked and leak juice into the surrounding baked product, making them unattractive and diluted in flavor. As a result, frozen raspberries are rarely used in baking, whether at home or in commercial bakeries. But that’s about to change…

In a recent article published in Food and Bioprocess Technology, Shyam Sablani and his team describe their method of reducing syneresis, or the leaking out of liquid.

Read the full article from WSU Insider: New Treatment for Baking with Raspberries

 

Getting mac and cheese to Mars

September 24, 2019  |   WSU Insider

By Scott Weybright, CAHNRS.

Washington State University scientists have developed a way to triple the shelf life of ready-to-eat macaroni and cheese, a development that could have benefits for everything from space travel to military use.

If human beings go to Mars, they need food. Food that won’t spoil during the long travel between planets, and while they’re on the surface… continue reading article…

Source: WSU Insider, September 24, 2019

Graduate Student Wins IFT Poster Competition Award

November 13, 2018  |  Chicago, IL

Pavitra Krishna KumarPavitra Krishna Kumar, a PhD student in the Food Engineering emphasis area of Biological Systems Engineering won second place at the 2018 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Graduate Student Poster Competition. Her presentation was entered in the Refrigerated and Frozen Foods Division.

Pavitra is advised by BSE faculty member Dr. Shyam Sablani.

Pavitra was also featured in the Refrigerated and Frozen Foods Division newsletter and gave an interview highlighting her work.

 

 

 

Winners holding awards

 

 

 

 

 

 

The full interview and award information can be found on the IFT Refrigeratied & Frozen Foods Division Website.

Food Engineering Students, Graduates, & Faculty Attend IFT 2018

BSE at IFT 2018August 2, 2018  |  Chicago, IL

Students, former graduates and faculty from the Food Engineering Division participated in the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting and Food Expo 2018 at Chicago, IL, and won several awards and recognition, highlighting BSE and WSU. The IFT Annual Meeting is one of the events that every food technology professional looks forward to each year. IFT 2018 brought together 23000 attendees from industry, academia and government, focused and passionate towards the science of food. Here is a list of our achievements this year:

 

 

Attendees:

  • Faculty: Drs. Gustavo Barbosa-Cánovas and Shyam S. Sablani
  • Students: Atisheel Kak, Jiewen (Grace) Guan, Juhi Patel, Li-Huei (Emily) Chen, Pavitra Krishna Kumar, Zhi Qu
  • Past Graduates: Drs. Ellen Bornhorst, Hongchao Zhang, Sumeet Dhawan

Poster Presentations:

  • Food engineering division:
    • A fluorescence-based method for estimation of oxygen barrier properties of wall materials in spray dried microcapsules
      Atisheel Kak*, Poonam Bajaj, Kanishka Bhunia, Nitin Nitin, Shyam S. Sablani
  • Food microbiology division:
    • Water activity at treatment temperature is the determining factor to influence thermal resistance of Salmonella enteritidis PT30 in different flour matrices
      Jie Xu, Jiewen (Grace) Guan*, Juming Tang
  • Food packaging division:
    • Effect of barrier properties of polymer pouches on shelf life of Microwave-Assisted Thermally Sterilized Ready-to-Eat Macaroni and Cheese*
      Juhi Patel*, Hongchao Zhang, Juming Tang, Carolyn F. Ross, Tom C. Yang, Shyam S. Sablani, Renata Queiroz
      Third place, Student poster competition, Food packaging division
    • Shelf life stability of a Ready-to-Eat sweet potato puree processed using Microwave-Assisted Thermal Sterilization and packaged with high barrier polymeric pouches
      Hongchao Zhang*, Juhi Patel, Kanishka Bhunia, Chandrashekhar R. Sonar, Saleh M. Al-Ghamdi, Carolyn F. Ross, Juming Tang, Shyam S. Sablani.
  • Refrigerated and frozen foods division:
    • Understanding ice recrystallization during frozen storage and its influence on mechanical properties of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) var. Russet Brown
      Pavitra Krishna Kumar*, Kanishka Bhunia, Juming Tang, Barbara Rasco, Pawan S. Takhar, Shyam S. Sablani (*Second place, Student poster competition, Refrigerated and frozen foods division)

*Presenting author

Division Leadership:

  • Food engineering division – Student representatives
    • 2016-2018
      Jie (Chris) Xu
      Pavitra Krishna Kumar*
      *Outstanding division volunteer award
    • 2018-2020
      Sumeyye Inanaoglu
      Jiewen (Grace) Guan
      Yonas Gezahegn
  • Food packaging division – Chair
    • 2018-2019
      Dr. Shyam S. Sablani

Symposium: Marcel Loncin lectures: Advances in Food Materials Science:

  • Co-moderators:
    Dr. Shyam S. Sablani
    Dr. Shelly J Schmidt, Professor, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, IL
  • Oral presentation: Rational design of encapsulation systems for improved oxidative stability of micronutrients
    Dr. Shyam S. Sablani

Past Graduates Attendee Achievements:

  • Emerging Leaders Network Program: Dr. Sumeet Dhawan
  • Division poster competition judges:
    • Fruit and vegetable processing division: Dr. Ellen Bornhorst
    • Food packaging division: Dr. Hongchao Zhang

 

More information can be found on the IFT website

 

BSE Faculty Receive Awards

Photo of award winners
Dr. Joan Wu, Dr. Shyam Sablani, and Dr. Ron Mittelhammer, CAHNRS Dean

Congratulations to Dr. Joan Wu and Dr. Shyam Sablani who recently received 2018 CAHNRS Faculty Awards.
Dr. Joan Wu – Excellence in Teaching
Dr. Shyam Sablani – Excellence in Advising

See @wsucahnrs post

Center of Excellence for Food Safety receives $1M Grant Continuation from USDA NIFA

Dr TangDr. Juming Tang, the Principal Investigator for the Center of Excellence for Food Safety, has received a $1M grant continuation for the grant’s second year from USDA NIFA. The four year, $4M grant, aims to accelerate technology transfer of microwave based food safety technologies by leveraging resources from the government, universities, and the food industry to bridge knowledge gaps and reduce technical and regulatory hurdles for food companies, particularly small and medium sized companies. This will be done by adopting novel technologies for the production of nutritious, safe, high-quality prepackaged foods and ready-to-eat (RTE) meals in light of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

WSU Principal investigators include Juming Tang (BSE), Shyam Sablani (BSE), Carolyn Ross (SFS), and Karina Gallardo (SES)

ASABE Student Mile Award

It is a pleasure to announce that at the 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting in Florida, the graduate students of WSU BSE secured the “Student Mile Award” for the 2nd time consecutively. In addition, Ravi Kiran, was elected as ASABE IPC student officer.