An international panel of food experts from science and industry reviewed the many excellent applications that were submitted. The candidates research was assessed according to the level of scientific quality, inventiveness and the potential business impact.
In the category for PhD students, the honor of student of the year went to the 29-year-old Silvia Brandner for her research on optimizing the resting time of wheat dough though mechanical/electrical stimulation. Her colleagues at TU Munich praise her for her knowledge of the essential mechanical and structural dough characteristics required for optimal dough processing.
In the category for MSc students, the 25-year-old Ozan Karatas won the first prize for his research on Computational Strategies For Temperature Uniformity during Radio Frequency Heating/Thawing. At Ankara University, he uses mathematical modelling approaches to study the temperature distribution of products and the flow profile of liquid in pipes and electromagnetic distribution systems to advance food processing.
For the first time, EFFoST and Cargill presented the Popular Vote Award. The winner was chosen by the delegates at the EFFoST International Conference 2018. Qinhui Xing won the Popular vote 2018 by enthusiastically presenting her research on ‘Protein enrichment of defatted soybean flour by fine milling and electrostatic separation’ throughout the conference on the exhibition floor.
All winners received an award and prize money and had their travel expenses and conference registration fees covered. In the spring of 2019, they will be visiting Cargill’s European R&D Centre to present their research.
The final ranking for the EFFoST Student of the Year Award 2018:
PhD
1. Silvia Brandner - Optimization of dough resting time by mechanical/electrical stimulation (TU Munich, Germany)
2. Tom Bernaerts - Microalgae as multifunctional food ingredients: different processing sequences to tailor rheological and nutritional properties (KU Leuven, Belgium)
3. Piyush Kumar Jha - Recent advances of microwave assisted freezing (MAF) in food processing under FREEZEWAVE H2020 project (ONIRIS, France)
MSc
1. Ozan Karatas - Computational Strategies for Temperature Uniformity during Radio Frequency Heating/Thawing: Product - Electrode Movement For An Industrial Process Scale-Up, Category Processing Technologies (Ankara University, Turkey)
2. Feng Xu - Synthesis of biomimetic salivary pellicle: Layer-by-layer assembly of bovine submaxillary mucin and lactoferrin (University of Leeds, UK)
Popular Vote
Qinhui Xing - Protein enrichment of defatted soy bean flour by fine milling and electrostatic separation (Wageningen University, Netherlands)
The European Federation of Food Science and Technology and our sponsor Cargill are dedicated to fostering the next generation of food scientists and professionals by acknowledging their academic achievements with the Student of the Year Awards.
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