NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

allow undergraduates the opportunity to gain research work experience in the natural sciences and engineering fields. Over 16 weeks, USRA award recipients are expected to conduct full-time research work with a supervisor. Awards typically begin on May 1, but may begin later, provided the work is concluded by August 31. The minimum amount of the award ($8,274.30 CDN). NSERC provides $6,000, with the supervisor providing a minimum of $2,274.30.

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Véronic Bezaire, Instructor III in the Department of Chemistry was awarded a Teaching Achievement Award from the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) for her work in Program-level ePortfolios in Chemistry: From Learning Outcome Assessment to Pedagogy. This project integrates reflective pedagogy with program assessment of learning outcomes using �Ӱ�ԭ��’s cuPortfolio. In identified checkpoint courses, students will perform cuPortfolio assignments designed to reflect holistically on one’s learning and achievement of program learning outcomes.  This annual reflective exercise will increase student awareness of skills and competencies and help develop a professional identity during degree programs. cuPortfolios will facilitate assessment of program learning outcomes and support program improvement efforts.

Congratulations and thank you for your hard work, Véronic!

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Véronic Bézaire
Instructor III, Undergraduate Program Advisor, & Co-op Coordinator (Food Science)
Department of Chemistry (Food Science) and
Institute of Biochemistry

Bio

I joined the Food Science program in 2010. Prior to joining �Ӱ�ԭ��, I completed graduate and post-doctoral work in the fields of biochemistry and nutrition, and then worked at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). As an Instructor in the Food Science program and Department of Chemistry, my research interests have shifted to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Education

Post-doc Institut de médicine moléculaire, Toulouse

PhD. Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, University of Guelph

BSc. Biochemistry, Université d’Ottawa

1.What drew you to Food Science?

I arrived to Food Science in a rather roundabout way. I chose (and loved!) biochemistry as an undergraduate degree. I then studied nutrition at the University of Guelph… that’s right, the university with the biggest and oldest Food Science program in Canada. I was even conducting research in the Food Science building but strangely, Food Science was not on my radar (!). After completion of my studies, I obtained my first ‘real job’ in the Chemical Evaluation group at the CFIA. It was this experience that made me realize how impactful work in food science is. I learned about food regulations and food safety monitoring activities and was simply _blown away_ by all that was being done to keep Canadians safe. I loved that my work in food science and food safety had so much impact on the daily life of Canadians. This was true ten years ago, is true today, and will continue to be true.

2. What courses do you teach at �Ӱ�ԭ��?

Currently, I teach four undergraduate courses, from 2^nd to 4^th year. I will be teaching an additional capstone course (FOOD 4905 Food Science Honours Workshop) this fall.

FOOD 2004 Scientific Writing in Food Science is really rewarding to teach. Firstly, I get to meet students early on in their Food Science program and see them grow intellectually over the course of their degree. Secondly, I get to teach students many valuable skills, from information literacy, to writing and presenting, that will help them succeed in their studies.

FOOD 3003 Food Packaging is much more than a cardboard box or plastic bag. It’s a fascinating area of food science that explores the barrier properties of packaging materials to environmental factors. It is also about active and intelligent forms of packaging that can sense deteriorative reactions in specific foods, neutralize those reactions or communicate them to manufacturers or consumers. The main outcome for this course is that students are equipped to propose suitable packaging materials for a variety of commodities, based on their respective deteriorative reaction profile.

FOOD 4201 Advanced Energy Metabolism is my first love. The regulation of human energy metabolism in different tissues and in different physiological states is so fascinating to me. That’s what lead me to graduate studies. It’s so relevant when trying to make sense of low carb diets, keto diets, intermittent fasting, and the rest of diets that come and go.

FOOD 4202 Micronutrients and Health explores the metabolism of micronutrients. Sure, we review traditional functions of micronutrients, but we also explore novel functions of micronutrients. We evaluate the strength of those novel functions by critiquing systematic reviews and meta-analyses. We even go through the steps of updating our own systematic review and meta-analysis. Thank you to awesome bioscience librarian Heather MacDonald for teaching us such important skills!

3. What high impact teaching practices do you bring to the Food Science program?

I am a big proponent of active learning practices. I think this stems from my personal experience as an undergraduate student. Unknowingly at the time, I was adopting my own active learning approaches to be successfully in my studies. Today, the literature in teaching and learning confirms the learning gains from active learning over passive learning despite student preference for passive learning. I try to adopt a scholarly approach to teaching, by incorporating elements of active learning in my courses, collecting data on their effectiveness, and adjusting accordingly.

I am also fascinated by course and curriculum design. I love going through the process of backward design, that is to identify learning outcomes for a course, plan forms of assessment to evaluate those outcomes, and then think of the content and skills required to achieve those outcomes. This is important within individual courses, but also at the program level, to help students make connections between courses. It’s a big change from the content-driven lectures from 20 years ago but it makes a lot of sense to me. I think my work experience outside of academia may help me appreciate the importance of outcome-based teaching and learning. I have seen that employers care not only about your knowledge, but what you can do with your knowledge.

4. What makes the Food Science Program at �Ӱ�ԭ�� unique?

Food Science at �Ӱ�ԭ�� is an interdisciplinary science program with elements of economics, regulations, and policy.  This is precisely what employers seek in science graduates: sound scientific knowledge and transferable skills for a smooth transition to the workforce.

5. What is a fun fact about you?

I love trail running and wish I were a mountain goat.

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“We wanted to see if we could improve the quality and relevance of the [public health education] materials that are available to these rural and remote First Nations communities,”- Chemistry Professor David Miller.

Ariel Root, �Ӱ�ԭ�� Food Science Alum, and current PhD candidate at the School of Public Policy and Administration, worked with youth from Nishnawbe Aski Nation communities to develop public health educational materials in Oji-Cree that will help spread the word about the health impacts of mold, and steps to mitigate them – like proper cleaning techniques and installing a heat recovery ventilator.

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Apollo Tsopmo
Associate Professor,
Food Science, Department of Chemistry

I have been with the Food Science program at �Ӱ�ԭ�� since 2008 where I conduct research and teach courses related to nutrition and food chemistry. Before joining �Ӱ�ԭ��, I worked as a visiting fellow at the Food and Bio-products division of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Saskatoon, SK) and later as a research associate in human nutritional sciences at the University of Manitoba, MB.

1. What is your area of interest/research?

I have an interest in nutrition and in understanding the impact of specific food molecules on health. Some of my works include the biochemistry of human milk, the identification of novel peptides, and their role in infant health. I am also interested in finding new peptides from cereals and then elucidating their contribution to 1) the quality of foods; 2) the reduction of inflammation; 3) the regulation of enzymes; 4) the absorption of essential minerals or the detoxification of harmful ones, such as arsenic.

2. What drew you to Food Science? What excites you about it?

The work I am doing is quite interesting. It is now clear that foods provide more than energy and nutrients. There is a relationship between diet and health. A food meanwhile can contain thousand of molecules and the excitement is being able to identify the ones responsible for their biological function through a series of experiments that involve analytical chemistry, biochemistry, molecular modeling, and molecular biology.

3. Why is it important for society to know? 

The human body is highly regulated and is able in most cases to eliminate toxicants some of which are normal products of metabolism. However, with excess energy intake, ageing, exposure to environment toxic and even oxidised food, the body can no longer maintain its balances. The consequence is increased of risk of developing chronic diseases. The research performed in my laboratory is important because it aims to identify molecules often from food by-proteins (i.e., wastes) that can improve the quality of many foods, but also help humans fight inflammation and related conditions.

4. What course(s) do you teach? What is your favourite course to teach and why? 

I teach three courses, two courses at the undergraduate level and one at the graduate. They are all very interesting at least from my point of view. The second year course covers various aspects of nutrition. Students learn the role nutrients and their contribution to energy and health. They students enjoy performing the analysis of their diet to determine excess or deficiency of a particular nutrient and propose changes to improve the nutritional adequacy of their diet. The third year course covers the chemistry of foods. Here students, use chemical equations, show the flavour of foods, colour changes during storages, or processing (e.g., cooking, baking/grilling) of foods. I like the course, as students will look at the food differently, they will themselves for example, why do we have this colour or flavour? What is the chemical or enzymatic reaction taking place?

5. What makes the Food Science Program unique here at �Ӱ�ԭ��?

The specificity of the �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Food Science program relies on the strong emphasis of science, economy and policy. Concerning the science, our graduates have deep knowledge of various analytical and molecular techniques to identify not only healthy molecules. This is important for nutritious and safe foods.

6. Describe yourself in three words.

Patient, Rigorous, Ambitious

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Farah Hosseinian
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry (Food Science) and
Institute of Biochemistry

 Bio:

Education:

1. What is your area of interest/research?

My research program is on Food Processing/Food Functionality, focusing on extraction and characterization of novel biomolecules (phytochemical, mainly phenolic lipids) from agri-food by-products/waste. I also study their structure-function relationship in microemulsions/encapsulations in food and biological membranes. These biomolecules can have considerable potential for Food Science, Agriculture, Cosmetic, Pharmaceutical, Animal Science and Health Science applications. Our lab is now more than 90% solvent free with innovative green techniques (SC-CO₂ and Ultrasound) used to extract biomolecules. Using green technology and reducing waste is important for the environment. I love working with the Food Industry, helping them solve food production or quality problems.

2. What drew you to Food Science? What excites you about it?

My experience with food industry during my undergraduate degree in food science led me to start my education and carrier in food science, focusing on food processing/food technology improving food functionality.

3. Why is it important to society?

Humans eat from birth to death! Food processing is key to provide safe and nutritious food to sustain life and promote good health. Food technology is also really important to world nutrition and closely linked to food processing.

4. What course(s) do you teach? What is your favourite course to teach and why?

I teach three courses. Food processing (FOOD 2002) and Food analysis (FOOD 3002) for undergraduate students, as well as a cross listed Functional Foods & and Natural Health Products/FF (FOOD 4203/5105) for 4^th year undergraduate and graduate students. I like both food processing and FF courses because both courses are based on problem solving for the food industry.  That is a challenging but really important skill for students to develop.

5. What makes the Food Science program at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University differ from other universities?

Both research and teaching in the Food Science program at CU have a strong link between science, food risk assessment and food regulations that make our food science program very unique. This offers a dept knowledge for students providing applied disciplines/skills with a diverse potential to find jobs both in industry and government.

6. What is a fun fact about you?

My strong relationship with food industry and government helped me create challenging cases for students on food adulteration and industry problem solving while respecting food regulations. It is really FUN!

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Food Science Professor David McMullin, together with his students and colleagues, have published work demonstrating the effectiveness of a diagnostic analytical technique for the detection of toxin groups produced by cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria blooms produce diverse toxin mixtures that impact drinking and recreational waters, livestock, fish, agri-food and ecosystem health. A method is reported for the detection of all microcystins within a sample. Microcystins are a group of more than 250 chemically stable non-ribosomal peptide hepatotoxins and possible human carcinogens.

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Tyler J. Avis
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry (Food Science) and
Institute of Biochemistry

Bio

I have been a Food Science Professor in the Department of Chemistry since 2008. Prior to coming to �Ӱ�ԭ��, I worked as a Research Associate at Université Laval and as Director of Operations and Head of Microbiology of a biotechnology company.

Education

Ph.D. Plant Science, Université Laval

M.Sc. Plant Science, Université Laval

B.Sc.A. Agronomy, Université Laval

1.What is your area of interest/research?

I am a food and plant microbiologist interested in microbial food spoilage and plant pathology. My main research focus is the use of alternatives to synthetic chemical to control the growth of microorganisms on food crops and to reduce food spoilage.

2. What drew you to Food Sciences? What excites you about it?

I was always interested in plants and began working on food crops during my undergraduate degree. I then moved on to exploring the interactions (good and bad) of plants with microorganisms. That is where I developed a fascination with how to protect plants from harmful microorganisms.

3. Why is it important to society?

This is overly simplistic, but we all need to eat. While eating, we should not be ill from our food. And preserving food/extending shelf life of food is a small yet important part of food security worldwide. More specifically, my work focuses on overcoming our reliance on synthetic chemicals in food production and preservation. In essence, I look for alternatives to overcome drawbacks to the use of synthetic chemicals in food crops. These drawbacks include health and environmental risks, as well as the development of resistance, which may render these chemicals useless.

4. What course(s) do you teach? What is your favourite course to teach and why?

I teach three courses. I like them all for different reasons. My introductory course on Food Science at the undergraduate level is the first course �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Food Science students take in their program. I enjoy teaching this course because it often culminates in “I didn’t realise Food Science had so many facets”. I also teach an upper-level undergraduate course on Food Microbiology. This is what I do in my research laboratory, so I have a lot of stories to tell in class. Finally, I teach a graduate course on Food Biotechnology. I like this course because it allows me to draw on both my industrial and my academic experience.

5. What makes the Food Science program at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University differ from other universities?

In addition to its science component, �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Food Science program has a strong focus on risk assessment, as well as food regulations and policy. This depth of knowledge in these fields is not common in most Food Science programs. In my opinion, our graduates are more well-rounded Food Scientists because of these courses.

6. What is a fun fact about you?

I’m bilingual (English/French). I spoke English at home, and I did all my schooling in French (from kindergarten to Ph.D.). The first time I ever stepped into an English-speaking classroom… was the first class I taught at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University!

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