EDUCATION NEWS
Min receives Ohio State’s Distinguished Senior Faculty Research Award
David B. Min, Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at The Ohio State University, Columbus, received a Distinguished Senior Faculty Research Award from the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center at Ohio State.
The Development Center is made up of four colleges: Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences; Veterinary Science; Human Ecology; and Biological Sciences. The award consists of a plaque and a $4,000 honorarium.
Min, who received the 1995 IFT Stephen S. Chang Achievement Award in Lipid and Flavor Chemistry, is recognized nationally and internationally as a pioneer in lipid research, particularly on singlet oxygen oxidation of foods. He has authored or coauthored more than 200 research publications and four books on lipid and flavor chemistry, and has served as editorial board member or editor for six journals.
He received his B.S. from Seoul National University, Korea; his M.S. from the University of Minnesota; and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University. An IFT member since 1972, Min has been active in numerous national and local IFT committees. He is former Chair of the Ohio Valley IFT Section and has served as an IFT Councilor.
Call for nominations for newly endowed chair for study of nutrition in the prevention of chronic diseases
Nutrition research and its impact on chronic diseases received an important boost as the Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) announced establishment of the Unilever Chair for the Study of Diet and Nutrition in the Prevention of Chronic Disease.
The Chair was made possible through a $1.25 million grant from Unilever, a consumer products company operating in 88 countries. The individual appointed to the Unilever Chair will establish dietary methods to combat such chronic diseases as cancer and cardiovascular disease, in addition to educating the public on the latest research. According to the American Cancer Society, dietary factors are responsible for one-third of the 500,000 cancer deaths that occur annually in the United States.
Call for Nominations
The Institute is soliciting nominations for an internationally recognized expert in nutrition research to fill the position, which includes an appointment to the faculty within the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in research for disease prevention. Responsibilities of the position include leading a research and educational program based on nutrition and disease prevention and disseminating information on the latest nutrition research nationally and globally. This effort will include laboratory and clinical research, seminars, teaching programs, and the development of other resource materials used by many National Cancer Institute and National Institute for Environmental Health Centers throughout the United States. Recent research conducted by CINJ has focused on compounds present in such foods as fruits, vegetables, cereal grain, and tea, and their ability to interfere with the process of cancer development. There are a number of studies in progress designed to establish the link between dietary antioxidants and disease prevention.
A Chair Criteria Fact Sheet may be obtained from, and nominations should be submitted to, William M. Hait, M.D., Ph.D., Chair, Unilever Chair Search Committee, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, 195 Little Albany St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901.
Barbosa-Cánovas earns WSU Faculty Excellence in Research Award
Gustavo Barbosa-Cánovas, Professor of Food Engineering and Director of the Center for Nonthermal Processing of Food at Washington State University (WSU), has been named the recipient of the 1999 WSU College of Agriculture and Home Economics Faculty Excellence in Research Award. This award comes on the heels of his receiving the College of Engineering and Architecture Researcher of the Year Award for 1997.
Barbosa-Cánovas began his career in 1977 when he received his B.S. in mechanical engineering at the University of Uruguay, soon followed by an M.S. and Ph.D. in food engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He then worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Puerto Rico from 1985 to 1990, during which time he was granted two National Science Foundation awards for research productivity. He joined the WSU faculty in 1990.
He is the author and/or editor of 11 books on food engineering and preservation, some of which have been translated into Spanish, and the author of more than 150 papers. He also serves as editor of the bilingual journal Food Science and Technology International, the journal Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, and the food engineering theme in UNESCO’s Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Food Engineering Book Series published by Aspen and another series on food preservation technology published by Technomic.
Barbosa-Cánovas is chair of the organizing committee for the 1999 Conference of Food Engineering (CoFE), which follows the 1997 conference also organized under his direction. He is Chair of the Food Engineering Division of the Institute of Food Technologists, Councilor of IFT’s new Nonthermal Processing Division, and Vice-President of the International Congress on Engineering and Food. He is an IFT Scientific Lecturer and an International Consultant and Research Associate for the United Nations.
He and his research team conduct a program that is among the leaders in the world in gaining understanding of nonthermal methods of food preservation and developing new technologies to fulfill them.