Post of the Month: May 2020

Changes in the Committee of the E3S Student and Early Stage Researcher Group

Stephanie Bull (former E3S-SESRG Co-Chair), Nicolas Seince (E3S-SESRG Chair), and Christina Dietz, (new ESS-SESRG Co-Chair)

Stephanie Bull has been involved in the Student and Early Stage Researcher (SESR) group since 2015. In 2018, she completed her PhD thesis on the influence of the structure of whey protein on mouth drying. Now, she is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Reading, and a Teaching Fellow in Sensory Science in the Department of Food and Nutritional Science. Stephanie decided to step down to focus more on her current roles. She will still be involved in the group as a UK representative. However, it is with great pleasure to announce that the new Co-Chair of the E3S SESRG will be Christina Dietz.

Christina has been a long-standing member of the E3S-SESRG since 2017 when she joined as the deputy country representative for Germany, and as a Committee member being responsible for “News, communications, and website management”. This mainly included the organisation of the Post of the Month and the creation of the E3S-SESRG newsletter. While we aim to merge the E3S-SESRG newsletter into the global E3S newsletter, Christina will continue with the organisation of the Post of the Month until we found a suitable successor. Christina´s contributions to the group have greatly been appreciated and have been integral for the activities of the group. We were pleased to see Christina apply for the position of the Co-Chair and delighted to appoint her into her new role.

Christina discovered her passion for sensory science in 2011 when she was working as an undergraduate assistant in the Sensory Quality Control unit at Symrise AG during her semester holidays. At that time she studied Food Management at the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan-Triesdorf in Bavaria, Germany. From then on, she has experienced very different ways to conduct sensory testing in academia, gastronomy, and industry. So far, she worked with meat product, flavours, spices and functional additive mixes, green tea, and chocolate fillings – which perfectly indicates the large selection of possibilities that you have if working in the fields of sensory and food science. In 2016, she moved to the Netherlands for an MSc Food Technology (Product design) at Wageningen University, which decisively contributed towards her way into academia. At the moment, Christina is in the final year of her PhD at the University of Nottingham, which focuses on the investigation of the contribution of hop-derived volatiles to the multisensory characteristics of beer.

A look into the past

Stephanie proactively moved the group forward. She worked with Martha and Nicolas (past and present Chairs of SESR group) in the organization of meetings for students and young researcher during Eurosense, and Pangborn. She always wanted to help bring awareness of sensory science to interdisciplinary students, and to create strong network links with students across Europe.

Also, Stephanie always encouraged and developed activity to improve communication between members of SESRG. She helped to implement the student video competition, and support the organization of Knowledged Exchange Webinar.

What does the future hold?

In March 2020, Christina was appointed to the post of the E3S-SESRG Co-Chair. In this role, she aims to provide support to Nicolas in his role as the E3S-SESRG Chair and the committee in moving the group forward. Since the foundation of the E3S-SESRG, the group has done a great job in introducing interested people to the field of sensory science and providing an efficient network and platforms for knowledge exchange for people who are already working or studying in the field. It is important to maintain this group, to keep up the motivation of our highly committed members, to strengthen the young sensory community, and to make it even more attractive to the next generation. Moreover, social and knowledge exchange are equally important. Therefore, Christina will continue to organise events at conferences and support the organisation of meetings and webinars. Finally, she plans to strengthen the country representative roles and their voice for ideas for the group, to recruit new representatives and members, and to ensure that the group is well-presented across European countries, in both academia and industry.

If you have any suggestions or ideas for new events, activities or even for our website, we would be very pleased if you could drop us an email E3S-SESRG@e3sensory.eu or just find us at the next event!

Written by:

Stephanie Bull, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Teaching Fellow at the University of Reading

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepbull

Christina Dietz, Sensory and Brewing Science PhD student at the University of Nottingham

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-christina-dietz-b051936b/

Nicolas Seince, Sensory and Consumer Project Manager.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-seince/

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