Dr. Sundaram Gunasekaran is a professor in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also has affiliate appointments in the departments of Food Science and Materials Science and Engineering. He earned his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985. His MS and BS degrees were from the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, India, respectively. Gunasekaran has co-authored over 300 peer-reviewed papers,15 patents, and three books. His prolific research record has earned him a place on the list of the World’s Top 2% of Scientists. His research contributions have been recognized with many national and international awards and honors. The notable ones include the International Dairy Foods Research Award, multiple Fulbright Fellowship/specialist awards, SC Johnson Distinguished Research Fellowship, and the International Association of Engineering and Food’s Lifetime Achievement Award, He is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and the American Institute of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. From 2021-22 he served as a Jefferson Science Fellow at the US State Department under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Dr. Mehmet Ak graduated in 1987 as the top student of the Department of Food Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Türkiye. He received an M.Sc. degree (1989) from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst studying texturization of fruit pulps with Professor Micha Peleg and a Ph.D. degree (1993) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying cheese rheology with Professor Sundaram Gunasekaran. Between 1993-2000 he worked as a professor of food engineering at İstanbul Technical University. He is one of the recipients of the Incentive Award (2000) given to outstanding young scientists by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK). Dr. Ak currently works for a family-owned flavor manufacturing company, Aromsa AŞ, in Türkiye. He has been with Aromsa since 2000 working in different R&D positions involving food process engineering. Over the years he managed three industrial research projects supported by TÜBİTAK, and established the corresponding three production lines for encapsulation of flavors via extrusion, core-shell bead formation, and spray granulation. Dr. Ak is the coauthor of several journal articles and book chapters.
Dr. David W. Everett is an active researcher in dairy food chemistry, structural nutrition and digestion, using rheology as one tool to investigate food structure. His current position is Principal Investigator at the Riddet Institute Centre of Research Excellence in Palmerston North, New Zealand. His degrees are from the University of Sydney in chemistry (BSc 1984) and colloid and surface chemistry (MSc 1989), and his PhD is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in food science (1995). Dr. Everett has taught and researched in dairy food chemistry in his native Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland. He has served in leadership and governance positions in the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology (NZIFST), the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA), and the International Dairy Federation, and is a Fellow of NZIFST, ADSA, and Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
