Enhancing Human Health and Quality of Life

The research the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition digs into can be categorized into seven areas of excellence.

Functional Foods and Packaging

To improve ingredients, additives, nutrition, and packaging of food products across the supply chain with expertise to enhance functionality of food through innovations in nutrition, ingredients, and packaging to improve health, shelf-life, and the consumer experience. 

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Outcomes-Driven Education

To prepare exceptional students for careers in food and nutrition science by continually evaluating and improving instructional pedagogy and teaching strategies achieved by identifying, implementing, and evaluating pedagogical models and teaching strategies to optimize learning outcomes and meet industry partner needs. 

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Food Safety and Quality

To advance research, teaching, extension, and outreach programs to innovate and promote effective farm-to-fork measures for ensuring the microbial and chemical safety, nutritional content, and desirable sensory attributes of foods achieved through our expertise in microbial, chemical, and sensory analysis of foods and in novel food safety intervention strategies. 

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Nutrition, Lifestyle, and Health in Early Life

To identify effective lifestyle strategies including nutrition and physical activity to facilitate positive behavior change during early life (preconception through adolescence) in the effort to prevent and/or reduce the burden of chronic disease and micronutrient deficiencies, through our expertise in teaching, research, and outreach at the individual, family, community, and global level. 

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Prevention and Mitigation of Type 2 Diabetes

To prevent and treat Type 2 Diabetes and its complications in humans, animals, and in vitro models with a focus on dietary and therapeutic interventions through our expertise in human nutrition, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, and physiology. 

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Community Education for Health and Food Safety

To enhance research, teaching, extension, and outreach efforts to facilitate desirable health and food safety behaviors by developing knowledge and skills through our expertise in nutrition, wellness, health promotion, food quality, and food safety. 

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Green and Sustainable Food and Biomaterials Processing Technologies

To develop enabling technologies to maximize the value of agricultural commodities and reduce environmental impact in food, feed, fiber, and fuel manufacturing and to form interdisciplinary teams to develop and assess novel and sustainable technologies. 

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