THEMES & SPEAKERS

Dr. Rafael Pérez-Escamilla is a tenured Professor at the Yale School of Public Health and the founding Director of the Maternal and Child Health Promotion Program. He specializes in maternal and child public health nutrition and integrated early childhood development. His team’s work has contributed to large-scale improvements in maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, as well as early childhood development, across the globe.

His research has highlighted the importance of placing women, infants, and young children at the center of efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change on food, nutrition, and water insecurity. He has published over 380 peer-reviewed articles, guest-edited 15 journal supplements, and authored numerous book chapters and technical reports.

Dr. Pérez-Escamilla was a member of the Executive Committee and a co-author of the 2016 Lancet Early Childhood Development Series and the 2023 Lancet Breastfeeding Series. He is currently contributing to the 2026 Lancet Series on Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Food Insecurity. He also served as an expert member and co-author of the recently published National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) consensus study report on breastfeeding in the United States.

He has served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as to the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Internationally, he has advised several United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in addition to foundations and governments across multiple world regions.

Dr. Pérez-Escamilla has delivered over 450 invited lectures worldwide and has received numerous prestigious honors. These include election to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine in 2019; being awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016; and receiving from the American Society for Nutrition both the Lifetime Achievement Award in Global Nutrition in 2020 and the Distinguished Fellow recognition in 2025.

Dr. Zhen-Yu CHEN is currently professor at School of Food Science in Guangdong Pharmaceutical University. He used to be Choh-Ming Li Chair professor at School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Professor Chen has published more than 300 SCI papers with a total citation of >23000 times and an H-index of 86. Professor Chen is the former Associate Editor of Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Professor Chen is currently Editor of Food Chemistry, Associate Editor of Phytomedicine, Associate Editor of Food Reviews International, and Senior Editor of Food & Medicine Homology. He also serves as a member of the Editorial Boards including Journal of Functional Foods, Food & Function, Food Science and Human Wellness, Biomedical and Environmental Sciences, and Acta Nutrimenta Sinica. Professor Chen has received several awards including the Advancement of Application of Agricultural and Food Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society, the High Education Outstanding Scientific Research Output Award for Natural Science from the China Ministry of Education, and the Medal of Honour (MH) from Hong Kong SAR Government in recognition of his contributions to the promotion of food safety and protection of public health. Professor Chen is also the Fellow of American Chemical Society (Agricultural and Food Chemistry Division, USA) the Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), and the Fellow of International Society of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods.

Dr. Alejandro G. Marangoni is a Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair in Food, Health and Aging at the University of Guelph, Canada. His work concentrates on the relationship between the multiscale physical structure of food materials and their functionality, in the context of nutrition, quality, sustainability and cost. Marangoni is especially known for his work and contributions on lipids. He is the Editor in Chief of both Elsevier’s Current Opinion and Current Research in Food Science. He has founded and commercialized several technology platforms. Dr. Marangoni was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2018, an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2021 and appointed a member to the Order of Ontario in 2025.

Dr. Rickey Yada is Professor and Dean, Faculty of Agricultural, Environmental and Life Sciences (University of Alberta). From 2014 to 2024, he was Dean of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems (University of British Columbia). Prior to UBC, Dr. Yada was at the University of Guelph including Chair, Department of Food Science, Assistant Vice President Research, Canada Research Chair in Food Protein Structure, and Scientific Director of the Advanced Foods and Materials Network (Networks of Centres of Excellence Canada).

Dr. Yada is a co-editor of Trends in Food Science and Technology and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He is an advisor to other Boards of research and industry organizations, such as the Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network, Canadian Food Innovation Network and Saltagen Ventures Limited (Hong Kong). Other positions include Technical Advisor, CDL Rockies; Advisory Committee Member at Arrell Food Institute; Member of the Scientific Advisory Panels: Riddet Institute (New Zealand) and Sydney Institute of Agriculture (University of Sydney, Australia).

Dr. Yada is the Past President of the Deans Council of the Faculties of Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine in Canada; Past President and Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology, and the International Academy of the International Union of Food Science and Technology; as well as a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists, and Agricultural and Food Chemistry Division (American Chemical Society). Dr. Yada has an honorary DSc (University of Guelph) and Pro Scientia et Humanitate Medal (University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland).

Mark is a Professor of Food Microbiology and Discipline Head, Food Science & Technology in the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability at the University of Queensland. He is Deputy Lead of the Innovative Ingredients program in the Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA). He leads a research team in the area of food fermentation, quality and safety. His current research focus is around food lactic acid bacteria and fungal fermentation applications and precision fermentation. He teaches into food microbiology, food safety and food biotechnology courses at UQ and is a Fellow of the Australian Society for Microbiology and Australian Institute for Food Science and Technology (AIFST). He was the recipient of the 2017 AIFST Keith Farrer Award of Merit and 2023 AIFST President’s Award. He is currently the President of the Australian Association for Food Protection.

Dr. Yonghui Li is a Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Grain and Food Science at Kansas State University, where he leads an internationally recognized research program in food protein science. His work advances the understanding of grain proteins and bioactive peptides—spanning molecular structure, chemistry, modification, and functional performance—to enable the development of next-generation grain-based foods, ingredients, and nutraceuticals. His group integrates wet chemistry, engineering, computational simulation, and applied machine learning to drive innovation at the interface of fundamental food science and real-world applications. To date, Dr. Li has published more than 180 peer-reviewed journal articles, holds three patents, and has edited three books. He serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Food Science, Sustainable Food Proteins, Cereal Chemistry, and Agricultural Products Processing and Storage, and contributes to several international journal editorial boards, supporting the global advancement of food science research.

PROFESSOR LEONIE HEILBRONN is an internationally recognised clinical research scientist based within the School of Medicine at Adelaide University and the Lifelong Health Theme at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). Her work integrates clinical trials, mechanistic physiology, and translational science to understand how interventions such as energy restriction, intermittent fasting, and time-restricted eating impact glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity, and long-term disease risk. Professor Heilbronn is known for translating fundamental science into practical strategies for disease prevention and management, with a strong focus on real-world impact and healthy aging. She has published more than 160 original research articles with more than 17,000 citations. She holds leadership positions in academia and research and is the immediate Past President of the Australian New Zealand Obesity Society and Editor-in-Chief for Obesity Research and Clinical Practice.

Prof. Mieke Uyttendaele is Full Professor of Food Safety at Ghent University (UGent). She holds a Bio‑Science Engineering degree (1992) and a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences (1996). Her leadership roles include Faculty Director of Studies and Internationalization (2020–2025) and presently she chairs the Education group within ICA, the Association for European Life Science Universities. As a member of the Food Microbiology and Food Preservation Research Group at UGent, her work focuses on major foodborne pathogens - including Campylobacter, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella, Bacillus cereus and norovirus - covering detection methods, prevalence studies, control measures and risk profiling to support food safety management and microbiological criteria. She is the main author of the UGent book on microbiological guidelines and the ‘Pathogen-free food?’ book. She has published over 300 peer‑reviewed papers, supervised around 30 PhD students, and currently leads microbial hazard research within the EU FoodSafeR project.

Ihab Habib is an Associate Professor in Epidemiology, Food Safety, and Veterinary Public Health at the United Arab Emirates University, where he founded and leads the Veterinary Public Health Research Laboratory (est. 2020). From 2015 to 2019, he was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Public Health and Epidemiology at Murdoch University, Australia. Dr Habib complete postdoctoral research at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and before at and the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering of Ghent University, Belgium. His research centers on One Health, food safety from farm to fork, foodborne AMR, and the genomic epidemiology and risk assessment of foodborne zoonoses. Ihab Habib has held academic and research roles in Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. He has co-authored more than 100 Scopus-listed articles and contributed as an expert for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations / World Health Organization Joint Expert Meetings on Microbiological Risk Assessment on controlling Campylobacter and Salmonella in poultry. He is a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Risk-Benefit Assessment of Optimal Intake of Animal-Source Foods.

Professor Cordelia Selomulya is Head of the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW Sydney and Research & Commercialisation Director of the Future Food Systems CRC. She is an internationally recognised leader in food engineering, with research spanning encapsulation, smart drying, protein functionality, and sustainable food processing. Her work bridges fundamental science and industrial application through extensive collaborations with global food and ingredients companies. Professor Selomulya is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering, Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Institute of Food Technologists, and a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts. Her leadership focuses on translating advanced food engineering into scalable, resilient, and sustainable food systems.

Professor Jeffrey P. Youngblood received degrees in Chemistry and Physics at Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering under the direction of Professor Thomas McCarthy. After postdoctoral work at Cornell’s Materials Science and Engineering Department under direction of Professor Christopher Ober, in 2003 Professor Youngblood accepted a position in the School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University as the first polymer person in the department. There, he investigates nanotechnology, surface science, and advanced processing. Recently, he has been specifically interested in ceramic processing using polymeric methods, additive manufacturing, infrastructure materials and sustainable materials, specifically with regards to cellulose nanocomposites and food packaging.

Dr Oliver Watkins is a research fellow at the TUMCREATE research institute in Singapore where he manages the mycotoxin and vitamin research team. His current research focuses on using LCMS to quantify analytes that are often missed by traditional methods such as modified and emerging mycotoxins and glycosylated vitamers. These methods are then used to explore how novel agricultural and industrial processing systems impact food safety and nutrition. He is also working to explore the effects of the fecal microbiome on mycotoxin risk and whether faecal biomonitoring can be used to assess mycotoxin risk in the Singaporean population.

Dr Stéphane Bayen is a Professor in the Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry at McGill University. After completing a doctorate in analytical chemistry at the National University of Singapore, he carried out research in Switzerland and Singapore on chemical contaminants. Over the last ten years, he has established an independent research program, focused on the development of innovative approaches to perform non-targeted analysis of chemical substances in various matrices (food, breast milk, air, water, soil, etc.) using high-resolution mass spectrometry. Its research activities are mainly in the broad areas of food analysis, food authenticity and exposure assessment with the application of a better knowledge of the human exposome. Stéphane Bayen is the author or co-author of over 120 scientific publications and >250 presentations, and received the Agilent Thought Leader Global Award in 2021.