{"id":1150,"date":"2025-02-04T12:15:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T17:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utia.tennessee.edu\/spotlights\/?p=1150"},"modified":"2025-02-04T12:16:04","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T17:16:04","slug":"qixin-zhong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utia.tennessee.edu\/spotlights\/qixin-zhong\/","title":{"rendered":"Qixin Zhong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Professor of food science<\/a> explores innovative solutions for safer, healthier foods<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Can you describe your career journey and how it led to your arrival at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My education and career paths before joining UTIA were not quite like my colleagues. I received degrees from three majors: Animal Nutrition and Feed Processing (BS), Food Science (MS, PhD), and Chemical Engineering (PhD). I worked as an engineer for more than 5 years before starting graduate school at NC State. I was a post-doctoral research associate in Chemical Engineering at Iowa State University before joining UTIA and was so happy to return to the warmer southeast.<\/p>\n\n\n

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What inspired you to pursue a career in food science?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in a rural area, my dream when applying to college was to study finance to make big money, but life magically led me back to agriculture. I started my career in designing animal feed processing mills after college. My options for graduate school included animal nutrition and food engineering. I chose food engineering because I liked math more than biology. My choice also allowed me to learn chemical engineering later. I became more fascinated by food science after I was able to put all my education together and integrate my knowledge in many STEM subject areas.<\/p>\n\n\n

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What is your main research focus, and why is it important?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I study food ingredients that are the foundation to making our food supplies enjoyable, healthy, and safe. My research philosophy is to treat food ingredients as materials. Like playing Lego, it is based on knowing what Lego pieces (food molecules) we can play with and how they can be connected (with chemistry and physics). We can then use our imagination (structural design based on physical, chemical, and engineering principles) to build a specific geometry to meet a specific consumer need (appeal, taste, texture, safety, and health).<\/p>\n\n\n

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