As summer comes to a rapid end, I would like to extend my welcome and enthusiasm for the 2023-24 academic year on behalf of the Department of Food Science and Technology. I hope you all had a good summer and wish the new academic year is a success. Three new faculty members have joined us in the past year on the Athens and Griffin Campuses: Dr. Joseph Usack , Assistant Professor of Sustainable Food Systems Engineering, and Dr. Christopher Kucha, Assistant Professor of Integrative Precision Food Processing, in Athens, and Dr. Hualu Zhou, Assistant Professor of Food Chemistry, in Griffin. In addition to our excellent new faculty, please join me in welcoming Joseph Harrison into his new role in our Extension Food Science and Technology office as a Program Coordinator. I invite you to sopy by their office to say hello and welcome them to FST, CAES, and UGA.
Our department is also pleased to announce the appointments of Dr. Koushik Adhikai as the new Research, Extension and Instruction Coordinator on the Griffin campus and Dr. Abhinav Mishra as the new Graduate Student Coordinator based on the Athens Campus. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Yen-Con Hung and Dr. Rakesh Singh for their leadership and service over the past years in these respective roles.
I am excited to report that our undergraduate program under the leadership of Dr. Faith Critzer is continuing to show tremendous growth. Our undergraduate students numbers have doubled in size over the last two years, and we are confident that our future recruitment efforts will continue to be a success. Our resident graduate (MS and PhD), online MFT, and undergraduate programs are as strong as ever, with our students winning awards and scholarships at conferences and competitions all across the country and the globe. Our department was honored to award travel and support scholarships to encourage professional development for our graduate students. To all of the students that graduated over this year, we congratulate you and your achievements. We are proud of our student award winners and their accomplishments.
This year, our department hosted an Alumni Social at the annual Institute of Food Technologists conference for the first time. We would like to thank all the attendants of the event for coming, and we look forward to hosting the event again next year and in the years to come.
As we begin this school year, I would encourage you all to stay connected with UGA Food Science and Technology. We are very appreciative of all the support that we receive from you all and everyone for the commitment to our department.
Each year, hundreds of international researchers — from master’s degree students to academic faculty — apply to come to the University of Georgia to work in a wide range of academic fields. In the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, dozens of international research scholars work with faculty on important research that furthers the CAES mission while benefiting visiting scholars.
A new workshop brewed up by University of Georgia Cooperative Extension food science and technology process specialist Kaitlyn Casulli opened the tap on insider knowledge for craft brewers seeking to start a business. Casulli, an assistant professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Department of Food Science and Technology, is a craft beer aficionado with a mind for business.
Peter G. Chiarelli has been awarded an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative predoctoral fellowship from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture for his research on Georgia-caught cannonball jellyfish. Chiarelli is spearheading efforts to create a domestic market for collagen peptide powders derived from cannonball jellyfish.
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