Some good news for two recent Cornell Food Science graduates is bad news for food-borne pathogens everywhere.
Samantha VanWees ’16 and Genevieve Sullivan ’16 earned first and second place at the annual Institute of Food Technologists’ undergraduate research competition for their exploration of food safety practices. The competition was held July 18 in Chicago.
VanWees earned top honors for her poster and presentation, “Inactivation of Bacillus Licheniformis Vegetative Cells and Spores in Milk Using Pulsed Light Treatment,” which studied how pulsed light may reduce bacteria during milk processing and found it does not achieve a large enough reduction to be used as a thermal treatment alternative.
Sullivan presented, “Physicochemical Factors Affect Bacterial Attachment on Food Packaging Surfaces: A Theoretical And Experimental Study,” which examined how pathogens attach to food packaging surfaces and could lead to contamination.
Throughout their undergraduate careers as food science majors, VanWees and Sullivan worked in the food safety and engineering laboratory of Carmen Moraru, associate professor of food science.
“With both Samantha and Genevieve winning top honors, this shows how well-prepared, mature and competitive our students are at the national level,” said Moraru. “They are fantastic students. They were an integral part of our lab in their undergraduate years, and their success certainly has given me and the food science department a great sense of pride.”
Cornellians received other awards during the three-day IFT conference held July 16-19:
- Hongyu Chen from Professor Rui Hai Liu’s lab won the 3rd place for her paper in the Nutrition Division Graduate Student Research Paper Competition
- Xue Jiang from Professor Rui Hai Liu’s lab won the 3rd place for her paper in the Graduate Student Research Paper Competition of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods Division
- Professor Rui Hai Liu received the 2016 Tanner Award for the Most Cited Article in IFT Scientific Journals
- Food Science alumnus Michele Perchonok won the Calvert L. Willey Distinguished Service Award. She was being recognized for her exemplary work as a passionate volunteer in sections, divisions, and committees throughout her more than 30 years of distinguished service to IFT. Perchonok has served IFT in more than 30 volunteer opportunities — seven times as chair — and on the IFT Board of Directors.
Blaine Friedlander of the Cornell Chronicle contributed to this report.
