Departmental Publications, Food Science and Technology
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Newsletters, annual reports, and other departmental publications
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- Food Digest, Summer 2020(Virginia Tech, 2020)This is the summer 2020 newsletter for Virginia Tech's Department of Food Science and Technology.
- Food Digest, Winter 2019(Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology, 2019)This is the annual newsletter for Virginia Tech's Department of Food Science and Technology.
- Food Digest, Spring 2020(Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology, 2020)This is the annual spring newsletter for Virginia Tech's Department of Food Science and Technology.
- Food Digest: 2018(Virginia Tech, 2018)This is the annual spring newsletter for Virginia Tech's Department of Food Science and Technology.
- Food Digest : 2014Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department (Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department, 2014)Message from the Department Head: Greetings. December 10, 2013, is a date that should be recorded as part of the Food Science and Technology history. On this date we received a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy for the Human and Agricultural Biosciences Building 1 (HABB1). Almost exactly two years after breaking ground, we have moved into the new 93,860-square-foot building with research and office space for the Food Science and Technology and Biological Systems Engineering Departments. Moving our professional belongings is much like what we have all experienced in moving our personal possessions. It is a time of sorting and evaluation. While most of the department is enjoying beautiful new offices, some of us will remain in our current (FST) building that we still cherish, but the signs of its age are apparent. We will retain the administrative offices and the advising offices. Faculty and staff whose duties are primarily teaching or Extension will remain in FST. Some graduate students also will remain in the FST building, so the path between our two buildings is quickly becoming familiar. We are planning how to best use the space that we now have in FST. Lots of changes are still ahead for the FST department in 2014. We continue to grow as a department, with new faculty, staff, and increasing undergraduate enrollment. Our undergraduate program now has more than 150 majors. At the first Food Science Club meeting this year we had over 80 students in attendance. HABB1 is a beautiful building, and the department is delighted to finally be in a building made of Hokie Stone. The office areas and atrium inside HABB1 also have Hokie Stone. One Board of Visitors member commented that he believed the inside of HABB1 was the most attractive part of the building. I invite you to come and judge for yourself. We would love to show you the new building. Best personal regards, Joe Marcy.
- Food Digest : 2015Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department (Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department, 2015)Message from the Department Head: Greetings! I hope this newsletter gives you an indication of the Department of Food Science and Technology’s busy year. One highlight was March 21, 2014 — celebrating the grand opening of the Human and Agricultural Biosciences Building 1 with speeches from former President Charles Steger, Dean Alan Grant, and students from the food science and technology and biological systems engineering departments. It was the culmination of years of planning and construction. Now that the transition to HABB1 is complete, we can focus on projects in our new facility, and I want to encourage alumni and friends to come to Blacksburg so that we can show you our outstanding facility. With the shock of the move over, all will agree that working in this new building is a joy. The old food science and technology building is getting some much needed renovations, including a fire detection system, new paint in public areas, and a sensory kitchen renovation. The university has conducted a feasibility study for turning the dairy processing pilot plant into a 2,300-square-foot, hi-tech classroom. It’s still too early to say if this will happen, but after months of planning, we are hopeful that we are on track for a new teaching space. We have many new developments to tell you about, but expansion that I am very excited for is the establishment of three new endowed scholarships for food science and technology students. Pledges have been made to fund these scholarships through annual gifts from both corporate and alumni supporters. Financial aid for students is always appreciated and is extremely helpful as we grow our undergraduate program. In spring semester 2015, we will teach the first new course in our undergraduate fermentation option. Herbert Bruce has joined the Department of Food Science and Technology as an adjunct professor and will be teaching a new brewing methods class. Later in the semester, we expect delivery of our new brew house and research malt roasting system. We believe that curriculum that explores broad application food fermentations will be an option that new students will seek. It will also serve to attract prospective students to our department. We look forward to a prosperous 2015 for students and faculty! Best personal regards, Joe Marcy.
- Food Digest : 2016Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department (Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department, 2016)Message from the Department Head: The newsletter is a chance for us to reflect on the many activities of the Department of Food Science and Technology over the last year and to look ahead. In our last newsletter we detailed the opportunity to hire two new faculty positions. We are pleased to announce that Cristina Fernández-Fraguas and Haibo Huang have joined our department. With the addition of these new faculty the department has six assistant professors, the most assistant professors in the history of the department. Also joining our faculty as a research associate is Jian Wu. We feel very fortunate to have Jian join the department after completing his Ph.D. at Virginia Tech. Bill Eigel retired this year with plans to be more involved with the many service organizations that he and his wife continue to support. We very much miss Bill for his mentoring of students and dedication to teaching but appreciate that he is enjoying his retirement. Sue Duncan has been promoted to associate director of the Virginia Tech Agricultural Experiment Station. She will continue to have a small appointment in the department to continue her research in sensory science and advising graduate students. This year we will start a search to find a new faculty member to provide leadership in sensory research. A lot has changed in the pilot plants this year with the addition of the Virginia Tech-DuPont Convenience Packaging Collaboratory. This unique partnership brings new packaging equipment to our pilot plant. Additionally, we made significant progress in getting pilot plant support for the fermentation option we just began. The department now has malting equipment that allows us to process barley into malt and evaluate the finished product. In July we installed our state-ofthe-art pilot brewhouse made for us in Munich, Germany. To this we have added advanced pilot plant distillation equipment also manufactured in Germany. It is really exciting to see new equipment being installed in the pilot plant and know that fermentation research and extension will be possible for many years to come. Recently I vacationed in the Orlando area and saw the themed parks that most of us have enjoyed. A lot of imagination goes into building a world where wizards fly and play Quidditch with their mates and rivals. I realized that imagination is put to good use in our department on a regular basis, also. Our students have received national recognition for their products in national competitions. Our new faculty members are bringing imagination to instruction and experiential learning. Faculty and staff are daily engaged in cutting edge science where their imagination is being stretched. We hope you will come to see us and more importantly help us build a better Department of Food Science and Technology. We invite you to put your imagination to work to foresee a department in Virginia that serves our students, stakeholders, alumni, and friends in creative and innovative ways. Best personal regards, Joe Marcy.
- Food Digest : 2017Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department (Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department, 2017)Message from the Department Head: Greetings, I write this in the quiet time between Christmas and New Year’s. I do not know if the Hokies will win their bowl game, but I do know this will be the 24th consecutive bowl appearance for Virginia Tech, the longest active streak in the nation (update: They won!). Go Hokies! I hope you will enjoy reading about the many changes, accomplishments, and success of our students, staff, and faculty. One of the new buildings on campus is a Classroom Building that opened August 2016. The $42 million, 73,400-square-foot building contains 15 state-of-the-art classrooms and four interdisciplinary teaching laboratories with seats for more than 1,450 students, as well as study rooms and group meeting space. The new learning spaces are designed to support increasingly interactive and technology-driven learning experiences. The classrooms have features that include moveable furnishings, wall-mounted writing spaces, and multiple screens for projecting shared material and student work. Some rooms were configured as SCALE-UP (Student Centered Active Learning Environment- Upsidedown Pedagogy) classrooms, a specific design that facilitates teambased, active learning as an alternative to lectures, even for large classes. You can learn more about SCALE-UP classrooms at: http:// www.lib.vt.edu/instruct/classrooms/scaleupclass.html. The finishing touches have been put on the SCALE-UP classroom in the Food Science Building. FST Room 27, which was originally constructed as the dairy pilot plant (approximately 3,000 sq. ft.), has been converted into a classroom for a maximum of 68 and has all the audio visual equipment found in the new Classroom Building. The FST classroom is equipped with a Crestron AirMedia wireless presentation system that allows you to broadcast your laptop or tablet screen to the projectors without any cables. Windows, Mac OS X, iOS and Android are supported. The FST classroom has three 80-inch HD flat-panel screens and a HD projection system that can project an image from a single source or multiple sources simultaneously. The electrically controlled screen is 144-inches wide and 53 inches high when fully extended. Twelve recessed ceiling mounted speakers provide high quality audio. Freshly painted walls along with new carpet and furniture make FST 27 a great space to teach our classes. We may have old walls, but everything else in the FST classroom is high technology and state-of-the-art for teaching. This renovation has been a team effort. A lot of hands have been involved in making this dream a reality. Many in the FST department worked tirelessly to get the room ready for the renovation and planning the functionality of the classroom. The department enjoys beautiful labs in HABB1 and now a beautiful teaching space in FST 27. Thanks to all for your continued support and encouragement to our department. We hope to see you in the coming year. Best personal regards, Joe Marcy.
- Food Digest : 2012Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department (Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department, 2012)In December, Virginia Tech broke ground for the first building in the new Biosciences Precinct at the corner of Duck Pond Drive and Washington Street. The 93,860-square-foot building will incorporate laboratory and support facilities, focusing on a wide range of microbiological and biochemical research. Researchers will benefit from the expanded space, which will house research programs on food safety, food packaging and processing, environmental quality analysis, bioenergy and biomaterials, systems biology, and nanotechnology, among other areas.
- Food Digest : 2013Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department (Virginia Tech. Food Science and Technology Department, 2013)Message from the Department Head: Greetings. A lot has happened since our last newsletter. I hope as you take the time to read these stories, they will help you reconnect and remind you of the many friendships formed at Virginia Tech. Please take the time to update your contact information with the Department of Food Science and Technology or through the Alumni Association. We really do wish to keep in touch. Three years ago a survey was conducted with all of the IFT approved Food Science programs to see how many undergraduates were in the U.S. Out of 49 programs that responded at that time, Virginia Tech ranked 19th. Now we have greater than 130 undergraduate majors and are tied for seventh place for undergraduate program size. Our graduate program is also very strong; when we count the students in both residential and on-line degree programs, we have nearly 50 graduate students. As enrollment has increased, we’ve begun to outgrow our classroom. Many of you may still remember taking courses in FST 132; however our class sizes now exceed the room’s size, sending some classes to rooms across campus. The people of FST are also in transition. We celebrated with Harriet Williams, Walter Hartman, and Brian Smith as they all retired last summer. We miss them deeply, but their retirements were well earned. We see them often, looking healthy and enjoying extra time for their own interests. One of the biggest changes for me, personally, was the unexpected death of Cameron R. Hackney, Ph.D. Cameron and I were students together and shared many enjoyable hours during our professional careers. I admired his scholarly work, his amazing teaching ability, and his sincere care for others. He was my friend, and I miss him very much. Others, who were also touched by Cameron, have established an endowed fund in his honor. The proceeds from the Cameron R. Hackney Memorial Enrichment Fund will be used to cultivate the educational activities of undergraduate and graduate students in the FST Department. We welcome contributions to this fund from any who wish to honor Cameron. Best personal regards, Joe Marcy.