2014 John Clark Award

CRISTINA RATTI, PhD is the recipient of the 2014 John Clark Award in recognition of her dedicated contributions to the food engineering profession.  Cristina is originally from Bahia Blanca, Argentina, graduated as a chemical engineer from Universidad Nacional del Sur (Bahia Blanca) and began her graduate studies in food engineering at the same institution under the supervision of Dr Enrique Rotstein and Dr Guillermo Crapiste. She obtained a PhD in chemical engineering in 1991 with her thesis on the “Design of batch air dryers for fruit and vegetable products.” Her three postdoctoral placements were undertaken at three academic institutions in collaboration with Dr Arun Mujumdar (Chemical Engineering, McGill University, Canada) from 1991 to 1993, Dr Vijaya Raghavan (Bioresource Engineering, McGill University) from 1993 to 1995, and Dr Guillermo Crapiste in PLAPIQUI (Chemical Engineering Institute, Bahia Blanca) from 1995 to 1996.In 1996 she joined the Soils and Agri-Food Engineering Department of Université Laval (Québec, Canada) as a professor of food engineering. She is presently a full professor and a member of the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods INAF (since 2003). Her research interests have always been related to food dehydration (air drying, freeze-drying, osmotic dehydration) and physicochemical and quality properties of foodstuffs related to drying. She has published numerous scientific manuscripts and contributed to the training of many graduate and undergraduate students on the science of food engineering and dehydration.