NEWS RELEASE
3-28-01
Contacts:
Patricia Murphy, Food Science and Human Nutrition, (515) 294-1970
Teddi Barron, News Service, (515) 294-4778
ISU ANNOUNCES CANDIDATES FOR DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR DESIGNING
FOODS TO IMPROVE NUTRITION
AMES, Iowa -- Four candidates for the director of Iowa State
University's Center for Designing Foods to Improve Nutrition have been
announced.
The candidates are Casimir C. Akoh, professor of food science and technology
at the University of Georgia, Athens; Sung I. Koo, professor of human
nutrition at Kansas State University, Manhattan; Jay Whelan, associate
professor of nutrition at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and Dennis
T. Gordon, professor of cereal science at North Dakota State University,
Fargo.
The Center for Designing Foods to Improve Nutrition is one of nine research
centers in Iowa State's Plant Sciences Institute. It has been a research
center at Iowa State since 1990, administered through the College of Family
and Consumer Sciences. The center conducts and fosters interdisciplinary
research to improve nutrition and promote good health through new and
traditional foods. Research emphasizes improving human diets by enhancing
the plant-based constituents and by improving feeding strategies of animals
used for animal-based foods.
The director will lead the center's research and outreach programs and
supervise the core facilities.
Diane Birt, professor and chairman of the food science and human nutrition
department, has served as the center's director since 1997.
All four candidates will interview on campus in April and May and give
public presentations on their research and visions for the Center for
Designing Foods to Improve Nutrition. A schedule for these presentations is
below.
Casimir C. Akoh
Research presentation: April 9, 4 p.m., 1951 Food Sciences
Vision presentation: April 10, 11:30 a.m., 1951 Food Sciences
Sung I. Koo
Research presentation: April 16, 4 p.m., 302 Catt Hall
Vision presentation: April 17, 11 a.m., 1652 Gilman Hall
Jay Whelan
Research presentation: May 3, 4 p.m., 1951 Food Sciences
Vision Presentation: May 4, 11 a.m., 1951 Food Sciences
Dennis T. Gordon
Research presentation: May 7, 4 p.m., 1951 Food Sciences
Vision presentation: May 8, 11 a.m., 1951 Food Sciences
Akoh
Akoh has been on the faculty at the University of Georgia since 1992 and has
established a recognized research program in fat substitutes and lipid
biotechnology. In 1998, Akoh received the Institute of Food Technologists
Samuel Cate Prescott Award for outstanding ability in research in food
science and technology. He is associate editor of the Journal of the
American Oil Chemists' Society. Akoh earned a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the
University of Nigeria in 1981, an M.S. in biochemistry in 1985 and a Ph.D.
in food science in 1988, both from Washington State University.
Koo
Prior to joining the human nutrition faculty at Kansas State University in
1990, Koo was on the biochemistry faculty at Oral Roberts University School
of Medicine for 10 years. His research is on lipid and lipid-soluble vitamin
metabolism as affected by nutritional status, dietary phytochemicals and
steroid hormones. Koo serves as the panel manager of the Human Nutrition
Program of the USDA National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program.
He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Nutraceuticals, Functional
and Medical Foods and the Journal of Food Science and Nutrition. Koo earned
a B.S. in animal science from Kon-Kuk University, Korea, in 1970; an M.S. in
animal nutrition from the University of New Hampshire in 1973; and a Ph.D.
in nutrition from Clemson University in 1976.
Whelan
Whelan has been on the nutrition faculty at the University of Tennessee
since 1991. He served as a senior research associate of the Lipids Research
Laboratory Institute of Food
Science at Cornell University from 1988-1991. His research is on the role of
dietary lipids in cancer progression and cancer prevention He has received
several awards from the University of Tennessee for his research and
scholarship. Whelan serves on the editorial board of the Journal of
Nutrition. Whelan earned a B.S. in biochemistry from Southern Connecticut
State University in 1976; an M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina in
1982; and a Ph.D. in nutrition science from Penn State University in
1988.
Gordon
Before joining the faculty at North Dakota State University in 1995, Gordon
had been on the food science and human nutrition faculty at the University
of Missouri since 1979. From 1974-1979, he was an assistant professor at
Oregon State University. Gordon conducts research on the physiological
effects of fermentable carbohydrates added to foods. He is an invited
scientific lecturer for the Institute of Food Technologists and chair of the
Committee to Define Dietary Fiber for the American Association of Cereal
Chemists. Gordon earned a B.S. in dairy technology from the University of
Illinois in 1963; and an M.S. in dairy technology in 1969 and a Ph.D. in
nutritional biochemistry in 1974, both from the University of Connecticut in
1974.
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