EDUCATION NEWS
Medeiros selected department head at Kansas State
After a nationwide search, Denis M. Medeiros has been selected Head of the Department of Human Nutrition at Kansas State University, Manhattan. His appointment begins the summer of 2000.
Medeiros is currently a professor at The Ohio State University, and was formerly Associate Dean for Research and Interim Dean for the College of Human Ecology. His area of expertise is trace element metabolism as it affects cardiovascular disease, particularly cardiac hypertrophy. He has more than 90 refereed publications and has won approximately $2 million in grant support for his research program.
After earning his Ph.D. in nutrition from the Department of Food Science at Clemson University in 1981, Medeiros served on the faculties of Mississippi State University and the University of Wyoming. A Professional Member of IFT, he joined the Institute while a graduate student in 1980.
Lucey and Plhak join Wisconsin faculty
Food chemists John Lucey and Leslie Plhak have joined the Department of Food Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Lucey earned his doctorate from the Department of Food Chemistry at the University College, Cork, Ireland. There, he studied acid-base buffering and rennet coagulation properties of milk systems. He spent five years as research officer at Ireland’s National Dairy Products Research Center, where he managed cheese research projects funded by the Irish Dairy Levy; and a year as a visiting scientist in the Netherlands, where he studied the physical chemistry of food products. Before coming to UW-Madison, he was a lecturer and research officer at Massey University in New Zealand.
At UW-Madison, his research will focus mainly on the physical properties of dairy products. He is especially interested in the development of cheese texture and structure, and the interactions between milk proteins and the gums used as thickeners and stabilizers in yogurts, fresh cheeses, and other foods. He will also teach cheesemaking short courses.
Plhak is developing analytical methods for studying bioactive ingredients in foods. For example, compounds in onions and garlic fight infections and lower blood pressure, compounds in flax have anticancer effects, and ginseng and purple coneflower are believed to stimulate the immune system. She plans to use antibodies to develop better methods to measure the compounds that make these and other foods bioactive, and then use these methods to study the effects of processing and storage on the stability of these compounds in foods. Bioactive food ingredients, often termed “nutraceuticals” or “functional foods,” represent the fastest growing segment of the food industry in the U.S. today.
Plhak is slated to teach undergraduate courses in food analysis, and hopes to develop a graduate level course in food analysis. She earned her Ph.D. in food chemistry at the University of Alberta, where she studied methods for identifying potato glycoalkaloids. She did postdoctorate studies in the Department of Immunology at Alberta, studying how neem, which has been used in India for more than 8,000 years as an all-purpose medicinal herb, affects the immune system. She was an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science at Louisiana State University from 1995 to 1999.
Penn State hires Cutter as assistant professor of food science
Catherine Nettles Cutter has joined the Department of Food Science faculty at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. She will be an Assistant Professor of Food Science and Extension Specialist in the area of processing and manufacturing of muscle foods with an emphasis on food safety.
Cutter received her Ph.D. at Clemson University, Clemson, S.C. Her extension and research interests include controlling the microbiological quality and safety of muscle foods; HACCP for meat processors; intervention technologies for reducing pathogens; application of food grade antimicrobials, including bacteriocins; and investigating the association/attachment of bacteria to surfaces.
Prior to joining Penn State, she worked as a microbiologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Roman L. Hruska U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, Meats Research Unit, in Clay Center, Nebraska.
National Research Council seeks applicants for postdoctoral and senior research associateship awards
The National Research Council announces the 2000 Postdoctoral and Senior Research Associate Programs to be conducted on behalf of more than 120 research laboratories throughout the United States.
The programs provide opportunities for scientists and engineers of unusual promise, ability to perform research, and have their Ph.D., Sc.D., or M.D. degrees. The research may be of their own choosing, yet compatible with the research interests of the sponsoring laboratory. Initiated in 1954, the Associateship Programs have contributed to the career development of more than 8,000 scientists ranging from recent Ph.D. recipients to distinguished senior scientists.
Approximately 350 new full-time Associateships will be awarded in 2000 for research in chemistry, earth and atmospheric sciences, engineering, applied sciences and computer science, life and medical sciences, mathematics, space and planetary sciences, and physics. Postdoctoral awards are made for one or two years, renewable for a maximum of three years; senior applicants who have held the doctorate for at least five years may request shorter periods. Annual stipends for recent Ph.D. recipients for the 2000 program are in the range of $30,000–50,000, depending on the sponsoring laboratory, and will be appropriately higher for senior award recipients. Financial support is provided for allowable relocation expenses and for limited professional travel during the duration of the award. The host laboratory will provide facilities, support services, necessary equipment, and travel necessary for the conduct of the approved research program.
Applications may be submitted continuously throughout the year; deadlines for application are January 15, April 15, and August 15, 2000. Initial awards will be announced in March and April; and in July and November for the two later competitions, followed by awards to alternate candidates later.
For more information, or to obtain an application packet, contact the National Research Council, Associate Programs (TJ 2114/D3), 2101 Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington, DC 20418 (fax 202-334-2759; E-mail: [email protected]; Web site: www.national-academies.org/rap).
KSU establishes Hartman Memorial Lecture in microbiology
In honor of the late Paul A. Hartman, a prominent microbiologist active in the American Society of Microbiology, the Kansas State University (KSU) International Workshop on Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology has established the Paul A. Hartman Memorial Lecture.
The 1999 lecturer, Bala Swaminathan of the Centers of Disease Control, Atlanta, Ga., gave a talk on “The Role of Rapid Methods in Epidemiology and Investigative Microbiology” on July 9, 1999. Daniel Y.C. Fung, a former student of Paul Hartman, is the initiator and director of the KSU workshop, presented each year in July at Kansas State University.
The 2000 Hartman Lecturer will be Dean O. Cliver of the University of California, Davis, who will speak on “Detecting Viruses and Protozoa—The ‘Other’ Foodborne Disease Agents,” during the popular workshop’s 20th Gala Anniversary Celebration, to be held July 6–14, 2000.
Durst appointed food science department chair at Cornell
Richard A. Durst was appointed Chairman of the Department of Food Science and Technology at Cornell University, at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva, N.Y., to succeed outgoing chair Mark McLellan. The appointment was effective July 1, 1999.
Durst has been at NYSAES for almost ten years as a professor of chemistry and Director of the Cornell Analytical Chemistry Laboratories and IR-4 Northeast Regional Laboratory in Geneva. He plans to expand upon the initiatives begun by McLellan, including the completion and inauguration in March 2000 of the Cornell Vinification and Brewing Technology Laboratory at Geneva.
He received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Rhode Island and his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry with a minor in biophysics in from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests include the application of biological recognition (antibodies and nucleic acid probes) and liposome amplification strategies to the development of novel biosensing devices for extra-laboratory screening of clinical analytes, environmental pollutants, and food contaminants. A Professional Member of IFT, he joined the Institute in 1995.
CORRECTIONS
• In the article, “Naturalness Decision Tree” by Cynthia J. Mussinan and Patrick G. Hoffman (May, p. 54), questions 4 and 5 on p. 55 incorrectly referred to measurement of optical rotation by polarography. The correct technique is polarimetry (which was correctly identified in questions 6 and 7).
• In the Processing column on microwave processing of food (July 1999, p. 114), the Internet address for the software that can model microwave heating patterns was incorrectly printed. The correct address is www.qwed.com.pl.
• In the Packaging Products & Literature section on p. 82 of the August 1999 issue, the item about MRM/Elgin Corp.’s in-line capper listed the wrong phone number and Web address. The correct phone number is 715-235-5583, and the correct Web address is www.mrmelgin.com.
• In the article, “1999 IFT Annual Meeting & Food Expo Breaks All Records” (September, p. 64), the caption for the bottom photo on p. 67 inadvertently misidentified Jean Larousse as Bernard Charpentier. Larousse, former director of the Appert Institute, accepted a plaque on behalf of the Union Interprofessionelle pour la Promotion des Industries de la Conserve Appertisée for its cosponsorship of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Nicolas Appert. The commemoration, sponsored in major part by the Pioneers in Food Science series of books, included a symposium entitled “We Are All Appert’s Children,” a ceremony honoring past and present winners of FT’s Appert Award, and the presentation of a bust of Nicolas Appert to IFT. The photo shows Larousse (center), with Guy E. Livingston (left), president of Food Science Associates and organizer of the commemoration, and Jean-Paul Barbier (right), president of the Association Internationale Nicolas Appert, who accepted a plaque on behalf of Joseph Perrier Fils et Cie, another cosponsor.