Graduate Group Faculty

Discovery of bioactive components in foods and food processing streams through advanced analytical mass spectrometry.

Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Development of novel optimization methods for bioprocessing, including use of artificial neural networks; optimization based on historical data and efficient methods of bioprocess development; process monitoring methods for wine processing; fermentation of biological control agents active against grape plant pathogens.

Quantitative methods to understand material transport, breakdown, and absorption in the gastrointestinal tract to improve food safety and quality, increase consumer health benefits, and optimize food processing operations.

Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Graduate Program Enology Graduate Program Chair. Chemical engineering aspects of wine processing; mathematical modeling of enological operations.

Development and application of environmentally friendly technologies to replace the incumbent technology for extracting and fractionating of major food components such as oil, protein, and carbohydrates.

Community food safety and applied food microbiology with emphasis in foodborne viruses.

Food Science Graduate Admission Chair. Partitioning and transport in emulsions and microemulsions; effect of proteins and polysaccharides on micelles and microemulsions; separations and controlled release applications using micelle/gels and microemulsions.

Flavor chemistry and analysis; interaction of flavors with other (non-volatile) food/beverage components. correlation of instrumental and sensory methods of flavor analysis; health effects of wine; development of analytical methodologies for analysis of wine components.

Chemistry and nutritional biochemistry of lipids; the role of dietary fat on tissue and cell function; essential fatty acid metabolism and synthesis of bioactive metabolites; control of lipid oxidation.

Taste chemoreception in man; psychophysics of fats and oils; oral sensitivities and saliva; sensory evaluation methodology; sensory properties of alcoholic beverages; chemical senses and nutrition; sensory determinants of food acceptability; consumer research.

Sensory evaluation of wines and other food products. The study of descriptive analysis and time-intensity methodology and the use multivariate data analyses to integrate sensory and consumer ratings. The use of sensory science to study food and wine.

Most-microbe interactions of lactic acid bacteria; functional genomics of probiotics in food matrices and mammalian gastrointestinal tracts; ecology of lactic acid bacteria on plants and fermented fruits and vegetables.

Molecular genetics and microbial ecology of lactic acid bacteria employed in food and beverage fermentations; characterization of mobile genetic elements in lactic acid bacteria; profiling of mixed culture fermentations using molecular techniques.

Food chemistry and toxicology; impact of dietary exposures on metabolism; application of LC/MS to isolate and identify bioactive food constituents.

Control of gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, including regulation in response to stress, using genetic, biochemical, and cell biological tools that include fluorescent imaging technologies.

Dept. of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. Micro and Nano-Encapsulation Technologies; Nanoscale Coatings and Material Design for Controlled Release; Nanoparticles for Improved Detection Technologies; Molecular Imaging and Spectroscopy for applications in Food Quality and Safety (e.g. Food-Microbe Interactions); Transport Processes.

Value-added processing of agricultural products for food and non-food applications; characterization of thermal, chemical, physical and rheological properties of food products.

Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science; Dept. of Food Science and Technology. Suspension mechanics and rheology of spheres and rods; rheology of pulp suspensions and foams; magnetic resonance imaging; development of new rheological tools; biomedical engineering; acoustics; advanced composite materials; waste analysis and reduction evaluation.

Cooperative Extension. Dairy technology and chemistry; physiochemical properties of dairy products; cheesemaking technology; quality attributes of dairy products; physico-chemical properties of milk-derived solids; food microstructure; microencapsulation techniques and products.

Dr. Simmons' research focuses on improving energy and water use efficiency in food processing by reclaiming energy from waste biomass streams and developing strategies for waste water treatment and recycling. Specifically, high-throughput, massively parallel sequencing and bioinformatics approaches are used to characterize microbial communities that are able to deconstruct waste biomass into fermentable sugars under industrial conditions. These data are used to discover enzymes and molecular pathways that can improve industrial bioconversion of waste biomass into biofuels. Additionally, the microbial ecology of plant-soil systems exposed to food processing effluents is studied to develop strategies for recycling of food processing waste water to agriculture.

Dept. of Nutrition. Metabolomics; Measuring human health; Relationship between gut microbes and disease; Modulation of gut microbial metabolism; Measuring crop health.

Characterizing and optimizing the efficiency of linked water, energy, and food resource systems. He is particularly interested in applying methodologies for measuring and monitoring these systems and their interrelationships in high-resolution and across multiple scales, both geographic and temporal.

Linoleic acid is a type of fat found in vegetable oils, nuts, seeds, and animal products. Small amounts of linoleic acid are required for proper nutrition, but too much may be detrimental. Americans whose diet includes a lot of processed foods typically consume too much linoleic acid, which can contribute to chronic inflammation, heart disease, and other health problems.

Dr. Wang’s research lab studies the microbial safety of fresh produce, aquaculture products and animal products. Her program uses conventional microbiological technologies and new precision approaches, such as comparative genomics and metagenomics, to study the behavior of foodborne pathogens and their interactions with the background microbiome.

Dr. Wang’s research program focuses on chemical quality, purity, and nutrition parameters that occur during fruit and vegetable post-harvesting, processing and storage. This includes but not limited to (1) identifying the important chemical markers that are important for quality, purity and nutrition in food products; (2) developing robust (faster and cheaper) detection methods so they can be easily adopted by industries; and (3) modifying processing methods to improve quality, purity and nutrition. Dr. Wang is also the research director of UC Davis Olive Center.

Wine phenolics: chemical analysis, development in the grape, changes induced by the production of wine, and mechanisms for their effects on health, especially cardiac heart disease; analysis of oak volatiles, and the effect of oak barrels on wine sensory and chemical properties.

Food Safe Program, Dept. of Food Science and Technology. Cooperative Extension. Pesticide residues in foods, including risk assessment, analysis, regulation, and public policy; isolation and detection of naturally-occurring toxins of plant and fungal origin.

Infectious diseases caused by food-born pathogens; molecular and genetic techniques to understand bacterial-host interactions, pathogen survival in the environment and transmission. Virulence gene regulation and type III protein secretion.