Dr. Fred Payne, Professor in Food Engineering, has more than 13 years experience in fiber optic sensor design and food process automation. He has developed control algorithms based on fiber optic sensor reflectance measurements to predict the cutting-time for hard cheese and cottage cheese production. He is familiar with the practical needs of food operating plants and sanitary design requirements including 3A Sanitary Standards. His research entails sensor design, fabrication, and testing to measure various physical properties of food and bioprocessing materials based on the light scattering within the sample of interest.

Dr. Sue Nokes, Associate Professor in Bioprocess Engineering, has more than 10 years experience in mathematical modeling biological systems, including plant and microbial systems. Her current research focus involves mathematical modeling of microbial system interactions with their engineered environment for improving production of value-added biochemicals. She is focusing on both liquid and solid-state fermentation of agricultural by-products for biochemical production.

Dr. Czarena Crofcheck, Assistant Professor in Bioprocess Engineering, has 7 years of experience working with biological systems and process control. Her research focuses on product recovery and protein purification. She is focusing on the recovery of enzymes from fermentation processes similar to those utilized by Dr. Nokes' laboratory and the recovery of valuable proteins from plant sources. She hopes to utilize a foam fractionation technique to achieve efficient and cost effective bioseparations.

Dr. Mike Montross, Assistant Professor in Bioprocess Engineering

Dr. Manuel Castillo, Assistant Research Professor in Food Science and Technology, has ten years experience in dairy physics and chemistry and more than six years experience in cheese processing automation. His most valuable achievement is the development of a mathematical model to describe the aggregation of casein micelles and the firming process reaction during enzymatic coagulation of milk by light backscatter. His current research interest is focused on modeling of syneresis kinetics during cheese processing and developing an inline sensor technology to monitor syneresis and control the curd moisture content.