Chemicals in My Food

John Coupland is a Professor of Food Science at Penn State. His research program is on the physical properties of foods, in particular fats and oils. He teaches undergraduate Food Chemistry and graduate level Food Chemistry and Food Physical Chemistry. This is about that.

Jan 24

“If the discipline did not rejuvenate itself approximately every 25 years, then it would ossify and deteriorate. In other words, if chemical engineers today were satisfied simply to maintain and service the chemical process industry, then the field would be literally dead from an intellectual perspective. However, chemical engineers are keenly aware of this issue and have realized this for some time. In fact one can argue that as we move to bring the biomolecular sciences into chemical engineering, we are reinvigorating the field with basic science in a way that the discipline has done at least twice in the past 50 years.”

Department of Chemical Engineering, Penn State. 2002-2005 Strategic Plan.

[Although this was written ten years ago in the context of a Chemical Engineering program I have read no better summary of the challenges facing academic programs in Food Science today.]