Research
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Food and Bioprocessing: with emphasis on application of physical, biophysical, biotechnological and bioinformatics tools to assess and understand the effect of various processing unit operations on functional and nutritional properties of food components; New food product development; Biomass conversion; Bioethanol/Biodiesel; Highly interested in development and design of mathematical models to study the interaction of climatic changes and food production, livestock management and environmental conditions.
Community entrepreneurial development: Implementation of novel food processing technologies; Adaptive management; Food processing management and food security; Stakeholder engagement processes; Group model building and use; System dynamics modeling and coupled social-physical food model; Establishing co-operative processing units (Small Scale Industry)
On-going research projects in my lab are as follows:
(1) Development of magnetic nanoparticles for application in agri-food industry.
(2) Green synthesis of nanoparticles from agri-food by-products.
Completed research projects in my lab are as follows:
(1) Physio-chemical Changes Occurring During the Dehydration of Yellow European Plums (Prunus domestica L.) into Golden-dried Prunes.
(2) Investigation and Optimization of Methods for the Extraction of Antioxidants and Polyphenols from Yellow European Plums (Prunus Domestica L.)
(3) PCM Integrated Space Heating and Cooling and Cryo-Electrohydrodynamic Dehydration System for Food Processing Applications.
(4) Time Series Analysis and Statistical Model Development for Food and Water Availability in the Grand River Watershed.
(5) Detection of the Adulteration of Extra Virgin Olive Oil by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometric Techniques.
(6) Evaluation of Physiochemical Properties of Hydrochar Produced Via Microwave Hydrothermal Carbonization Process.
(7) Optimization of Foam-Mat Drying process for Peaches
(8) Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Light Emitting Diodes in Post-harvest Shelf Life Extension of Blueberries
(9) Evaluation of the effect of thermal and electrical food processing methods on almond protein structure using molecular modeling and in-vitro digestibility
(10) Detection of Ciprofloxacin Antibiotics in Milk through Microchip Capillary Electrophoresis Actuation and Fluorescence Spectroscopy Sensing
(11) Development of Scalable Optical Architectures for Microelectromechanical Systems
(12) Evaluation of different biosensor platforms for the detection of food allergens and toxins.
(13) Application of green extraction techniques for extraction of natural colours from food wastes.
(14) Development and optimization of high-shear cavitation process for bioconversion of carrot reject into food products.