Important

California pushes composting to lower food waste emissions

DAVIS, Calif. (AP) — Banana peels, chicken bones and leftover veggies won’t have a place in California trashcans under the nation’s largest mandatory residential food waste recycling program that’s set to take effect in January.

The effort is designed to keep landfills in the most populous U.S. state clear of food waste that damages the atmosphere as it decays. When food scraps and other organic materials break down they emit methane, a greenhouse gas more potent and damaging in the short-term than carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

Wonderful Company Awards UC Davis biotech spinout BCD Bioscience

Congratulations to BCD Bioscience (founded by UC Davis scientists Matt Amicucci (former FST grad), Bruce German (Foods for Health and Food Science and Technology), Carlito Lebrilla (Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine and Chemistry), and Dave Mills (Food Science and Technology) for being one of two applicants to win the inaugural Wonderful Innovation Challenge!

Barile awarded new Food Systems Innovation Grant by UC Davis Office of Research

Congratulations to FST's Dr. Daniela Barile, who was awarded $50,000 in July 2021 for the first-ever Food Systems Innovation (FSI) grant. The grant, a newly launched collaboration between Venture Catalyst and the Innovation Institute for Food and Health (IIFH), awards $50,000 to fund innovative technology advancements aimed at addressing global nutritional challenges.  

Phaff Yeast Culture Collection grows by 6,000 strains - new NSF Award

Dr. Kyria Boundy-Mills, curator of the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection in the Food Science and Technology department at UC Davis, received an award of $579,246 from the National Science Foundation. This will fund the transfer of professor emeritus and yeast taxonomist Dr. Marc-André Lachance’s collection of 6,000 yeast strains from the University of Western Ontario to UC Davis, expanding the Phaff collection catalog by over 50%.

Glen Fox & Charlie Bamforth featured in Chile - CA Brewing Webinar

At the end of July, Drs. Glen Fox and Charlie Bamforth were the keynote speakers in the "Chile-California Seminar: Strengthening the Local Brewing Industry".  The webinar was an opportunity for exchange of experiences and collaboration between the UC Davis Brewing Program and brewers in Chile.  Sponsors were the UC Davis Chile Life Sciences Innovation Center and CORFO.

Erika Estrada takes first place in IAFP 2021 Poster Competition!

Erika Estrada, Ph.D. graduate student in Harris Lab, was awarded first place in the poster presentation in the J. Mac Goepfert Developing Scientists Competition at the International Association for Food Protection meeting in Phoenix, Arizona; first place in the technical talk presentation went to Karuna Kharel, a Ph.D. student at Louisiana State University.  Erika's poster presentation was titled, "Using Whole Genome Sequencing to Characterize the Genetic Diversity of Salmonella enterica Isolated from Raw Inshell Pistachios".

New Stewart-Bamforth Educators Award Announced by Institute of Brewing and Distilling

Background

The new award is named after Professors Graham Stewart and Charlie Bamforth. It is most appropriate that this award be named jointly as during the 1990s and 2000s both ran a very successful series of educational symposia to aspiring brewing students in Africa, Asia, India and the Americas. Both have written and edited numerous fundamental malting, brewing and distilling texts that are now routinely referred to by students.

Welcome to New FST Chair Chris Simmons

Please join our department in welcoming our new Chair, Christopher Simmons.  Chris is a Professor who joined Food Science and Technology in 2013.  He earned his Ph.D. (as well as his B.S. and M.S.) in Biological Systems Engineering, UC Davis.  After earning his Ph.D. in 2011, he was a postdoc at the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville for two years.