People
Director
Associate Professor Anubhav Pratap-Singh, is the academic lead for the Dan On Food and Beverage Innovation Centre (FBIC). Dr. Pratap-Singh also holds the Food and Beverage Innovation Professorship, a position generously supported through an endowment made by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
Dr. Pratap-Singh and his team are developing new ways to improve food quality, nutrition, and sustainability by reducing the environmental impact of the food system. He specializes in various technologies like agitation and reciprocating agitation processing, extrusion, high-pressure processing, and others, studying their effects on different properties of food using tools like texture analyzers, colorimeters, and cell-culture studies. In his role, Dr. Pratap-Singh collaborates with food processors, growers, pharmaceutical, and nanotechnology companies, and leads academic planning for the FBIC.
FBIC Staff
Business Development Manager
Margaret Daskis, CFS (Certified Food Scientist) is our direct connection with the food industry throughout B.C. Over the past 40 years, since graduating from UBC Food Sciences, Margaret has assisted with the evolution of the dynamic food processing industry in B.C.
Educational Program Manager
Dr. Farahnaz Fathordoobady oversees educational programs tailored for those working in the food and beverage industry, including online micro-certificate programs.
Operations Manager
Miki Goda oversees the facility and manufacturing operations, physical resource maintenance, and process optimization of the Dan On Food and Beverage Innovation Centre and Food, Nutrition, and Health Pilot Plant
Food, Nutrition and Health research groups in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Researchers
Dr. David Kitts Professor, Food Chemistry and Toxicology, and Associate Dean, Research (LFS)
Dr. Kitts’ research discipline is Food Chemistry and Toxicology, employing food chemistry principles to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of both nutrient and food toxicant action in living organisms. More info.
Dr. Siyun Wang Associate Professor, Food Safety Engineering
Dr. Wang uses molecular approaches to understand the microorganisms that post major threats to food safety, security and public health. More info.
Dr. Rickey Yada Professor, Food Chemistry (on leave)
Dr. Yada’s research interests include the structure-function relationships of food and non-food related enzymes using molecular biology and various physico-chemical techniques, and various applications of food-related nanoscale science and technology. More info.
Dr. Tianxi Yang Assistant Professor, Food Analytical Technologies and Advanced Materials
Dr. Yang develops analytical technologies and advanced materials to improve the safety, sustainability, and resilience of agricultural and food systems. More info.
Dr. Derek Dee Assistant Professor, Food Protein Biophysics
Dr. Dee seeks to understand the forces that govern protein structure and function, with an emphasis on potential applications in food, biomaterials and medicine. More info.
Dr. Vassilis Kontogiorgos Associate Professor, Food Chemistry
Dr. Kontogiorgios’ research is on the physical chemistry of food macromolecules, particularly on structuring colloidal systems using polysaccharides. The emphasis is on polysaccharides’ isolation, characterisation and interfacial arrangement to stabilise dispersions. More info.
Dr. Vivien Measday Associate Professor, Wine Research Centre, and Associate Member – Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Dr. Measday focuses on the study of yeast populations associated with the vineyards of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. Her research team partners with the BC Wine Grape Council and associated wineries to perform spontaneous fermentations and isolation of the wine yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae). More info.
Dr. Patricia Hingston Assistant Professor of Teaching
Dr. Hingston teaches many of the core food science courses, including Food Microbiology and the Food Science Laboratory courses. More info.
Dr. Barbara Stefanska Associate Professor, Food Nutrition & Health Program
Dr. Stefanska explores epigenetics and how molecular events control gene expression that are independent of changes in the underlying DNA sequence. More info.
Dr. Tamara Cohen Assistant Professor, Food, Nutrition and Health, and Director, Dietetics
Dr. Cohen’s broad research interests lie in understanding the interplay between different lifestyle behaviours, in particular eating behaviours, as they relate to weight management. More info.
Dr. Simone Castellarin Associate Professor and Associate Director, Wine Research Centre
Dr. Castellarin focuses on viticulture and grapevine physiology, particularly the physiological and molecular aspects that underlay fruit ripening and the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, as well as the impact of environment and viticultural practices. More info.
Dr. Andrew Riseman Associate Professor, Applied Biology and Plant Breeding
Dr. Riseman researches the role of plant genetics in the design of sustainable production systems, identifying relevant traits useful in these systems, combining them within superior germplasm, and integrating this germplasm into an optimized system. More info.
Dr. Yvonne Lamers Associate Professor, Human Nutrition and Vitamin Metabolism
Dr. Lamers’ research draws from her interest in the biochemistry and physiology of nutrition-related diseases and in targeted and population-based strategies of chronic disease prevention and optimal health promotion. More info.
Dr. James Vercammen Professor, Strategy and Business Economics
Dr. Vercammen researches the properties of agri-environmental contracts such as the trade-off between risk and incentives. More info.
Dr. Frederick Noack Assistant Professor, Environmental Economics
Dr. Noack focuses on the interaction of economic development and the environment. More info.
Dr. Anika Singh Associate Member, L&FS, and Project Leader, Natural Health Products Research Group, British Columbia Institute of Technology
Dr. Singh has expertise in the areas of food processing, analytical chemistry, allergen control, food safety and quality assurance in food and pharmaceutical industries. More info.
Dr. Richard Barichello Professor, Food and Resource Economics
Dr. Barichello’s interest include the capitalization of government program benefits, analysis of quota systems and quota markets, and analyzing the effects of selected agricultural policy instruments, among others. More info.
Dr. Jennifer Jing Zhao Associate Member, Health Education Researcher
Dr. Zhao’s broad research interest lies in various aspects of health education including health literacy, nutrition literacy and food literacy, with the focus on health education in higher education, K-12 schools and a variety of other populations with fused research methodologies and methods More info.
Dr. Rajavel Elango Associate Member, L&FS, and Associate Professor, School of Population and Public Health
The goal of Dr. Elango’s research program is to identify protein and amino acid (building blocks of protein) requirements during key life stages, and in disease. More info.
Dr. Will Valley Associate Professor of Teaching and Associate Dean, Equity, Decolonization, and Inclusion
Dr. Valley’s research interests include sustainable food systems education, systems thinking and cognitive psychology, school food and nutrition education, community-engaged scholarship and urban agriculture. More info.
Collaborators
- Dr. Bruce Verchere, Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, UBC
- Dr. Emily Cranston, Associate Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering, UBC
- Dr. Feng Jiang, Assistant Professor, Wood Science, UBC
- Dr. Jaya Joshi, Assistant Professor, Wood Science, UBC
- Dr. Johan Foster, Associate Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering, UBC
- Dr. Mahjid Mohseni, Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering, UBC
- Dr. Mattia Bacca, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, UBC
- Dr. Hosahalli Ramaswamy, Professor, McGill University
- Dr. Orlando Rojas, Professor and Director, Bioproducts Institute, UBC
- Ms. Debra Hellbach, Manager, Centre for Seafood Innovation, Vancouver Island University
- Dr. Jennifer Jing Zhao, Chief Research Officer, Vitanutri Labs Canada (VLC), Vancouver