Food Scientist Advancing Healthy and Sustainable Food Innovation
Dr. Simona Grasso, an Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow in Food Science and Nutrition at University College Dublin, specializes in developing new healthy and sustainable food products. Her research focuses on reformulating processed meats for improved health profiles, creating extruded snacks from industrial byproducts, developing hybrid meat products combining animal and plant proteins, and investigating consumer behavior towards novel foods and sustainability labels. Grasso has published extensively on these topics, contributing significantly to the field of food science. As an educator, she contributes to EIT Food's educational offerings, including a course on tackling food waste, aligning with her research interest in upcycling food byproducts. Previously a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Reading, Grasso helped create courses on food science and sustainability. Through her multifaceted approach to research and teaching, she aims to advance food science towards more sustainable and health-conscious practices, bridging consumer preferences with innovative food technologies and addressing critical issues in food sustainability and nutrition