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June 2023
Congratulations to Cyprian Syeunda: IFT Food Chemistry Division-Graduate Student Oral Competition winner 2023.
Cyprian, a Food Science and Technology PhD Candidate under Dr. Joseph Awika, received 1st place in the annual IFT Food Chemistry Division Graduate Student Oral competition for his research work “Effect of cereal-derived flavonoids on Maillard reaction product formation”
To learn more about Cyprian’s research, please attend IFTFIRST on Tuesday, July 18th, at the Showcase Research Stage, he will be presenting from from 1:00pm-1:10pm
November 2022,
Suleiman, Cyprian, Gabbrielle, Chen and Toyosi participated and presented their research at the annual Cereal and Grains conference at Minneapolis. Delighted to congratulate to Gabriel Scott for emerging the Third Best in the Best Student Research Paper competition.
September 2022
Dr Abadi Mezgebe, visiting researcher(Assistant Professor) with a Fullbright Scholar from Hawassa University, Ethiopia, joined the Cereal Quality Laboratory. He will be profiling various cereals locally grown and consumed in Ethiopia with the view of diversifying their food applications.
July 2022
Katherine Le Mere successfully defended her masters thesis. Katherine currently works with Pecan Deluxe Candy Co in Dallas, Tx.
June 2022
Cereal Quality Laboratory successfully held the annual short course on Snack food processing. 
June 2022
Katherine Le Mere, Gabrielle Scott, Cyprian Syeunda, and Suleiman Althawab presented their research at IFT First in Chicago. Delighted to congratulate Gabriel Scott who emerged 3rd best in the IFT Carboydrate Division Graduate student paper competition.
March 2022
Cyprian and Toyosi participated in Sorghum Improvement conference of North America (SICNA) held in Dallas
December 2021
Jazmin Garcia Lujan joined Fujifilm. We wish Jazmin all the best
August 2021
Chen Chen and Toyosi Timilehin George joined the Cereal Quality Lab to pursue their Doctoral degree in Food Science and Technology.
May 2021
Jazmin Garcia joined the Cereal Quality Lab as Research Associate.
March 2021
Dr. Awika received the 2021 IFT achievement award for International Food Security
December 2020
Julia Brantsen received her doctoral degree in Food Science and Technology from Texas A&M. Dr. Brantsen is currently a Research Scientist at General Mills, Congratulations Dr Brantsen.
Kaitlyn Hankins Successfully defended her Masters thesis, awaiting graduation in spring 2021
Suleiman and Cyprian participated in the Cereal and Grains Association 2020 online meeting. They both presented posters on their respective research work.
August 2020
Audrey Girard got an appointment as Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin- Madison.
August 2020
Katherine Le Mere and Gabrielle Scott joined the Cereal Quality Lab to pursue their masters degrees in Food Science and Technology.
June 2020
Dr. Joseph Awika was appointed as Departmental Associate Head for the new Department of Food Science and Technology.
May 2020
Dr. Halef Dizlek continues his yearlong visiting scholarship in the Cereal Quality Lab (July 2019 – July 2020). He is studying the effect of gluten proteins fractions on dough and bread characteristics. Halef is an Associate Professor in the Food Engineering Department at Osmaniye Korkut Ata University in Turkey.
January 2020
Cyprian Syeunda (Ph.D. student) joined the Cereal Quality Lab.
Dr. Valeria Queiroz completed six months as a visiting scholar in the Cereal Quality Lab. She studied grain phenolic characteristics and health effects. Valeria is a scientist at Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária).
December 2019
Shreeya Ravisankar received her doctoral degree in Food Science and Technology from Texas A&M. She is now a Sr. Food Scientist at Pepsico/Frito Lay.
November 2019
Dr. Mariela Patrignani completed three months as a visiting scholar in the Cereal Quality Lab. She studied applications for brewers spent grains and effects of the Maillard reaction on phenolic compounds. Mariela is a scientist at CIDCA, the Center for Research and Development in Food Cryotechnology (Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Criotecnología de Alimentos) in Argentina.
Julia Brantsen won the Best Student Research Paper Competition at the 2019 Cereal and Grains Association (formerly AACCI) annual meeting that was held November 3-5 in Denver, CO. Other conference participants from the CQL included Joseph Awika, Audrey Girard, Suleiman Althawab, and Katie Duke.
October 2019
Katie Duke placed third in the Food Science poster competition at the NFSC Department Research Symposium. Suleiman Althawab and Fariha Irshad also competed in the poster competition, and Julia Brantsen competed in the oral competition.
Joseph Awika, Audrey Girard, and Julia Brantsen participated in the American Association of Cereal Chemists International (AACCI) annual meeting October 21-23 in London, England.
July 2019
Joseph Awika (3rd from left) and Audrey Girard (3rd from right) were among a contingent of wheat researchers from Texas A&M University and AgriLife who participated in the 1st International Wheat Congress in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Joseph Awika returned from a Fulbright Fellowship sabbatical in Ethiopia. He participated in teaching, research, and outreach activities at Hawassa University, and Bahir Dar University over a 10 month period.
May 2019
Tadesse Teferra received his doctoral degree in Food Science and Technology from Texas A&M. He is now an Assistant Professor at Hawassa University in Ethiopia.
June 2018
Tadesse Teferra participated in the U.S. Borlaug Fellows in Global Food Security program at Purdue University. The Global Food Security program is an annual, two- week course organized by the Borlaug Summer Institute. This was the seventh year for the program, which was attended by 40 graduate students from various land grant universities across the U.S.
May 2018
Shreeya Ravisankar
Shreeya Ravisankar began a 6-month internship at Kellogg’s in Battle Creek MI.
Audrey Girard and Taehoon Kim received their doctoral degrees in Food Science and Technology from Texas A&M. Audrey accepted an Associate Research Scientist position in the TAMU Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and will continue working in the Cereal Quality Lab. Taehoon is actively pursuing employment in the food industry.
April 2018
Dr. Joseph Awika and Tedesse Teferra participated in the Sorghum in the 21st Century – Food, Feed and Fuel in a Rapidly Changing World conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
As a member of the Texas A&M College Bowl Team, Katie Duke placed first in the South Central Region IFTSA College Bowl competition. https”//nfs.tamu.edu/2018/04/17/first-place-at-2018-south-central-regional-ift-college-bowl/
Shreeya Ravisankar and Tadesse earned 1st and 3rd, respectively, for their oral presentations at the NFSSC Nutrition Symposium. The title of Shreeya’s presentation was “Mechanisms for strong synergistic anti-inflammatory action of cereal-pulse flavonoid combinations in Caco-2 nomolayer model” and Tadesse presented “Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) as a new method to characterize sorghum endosperm with highly digestible Kafirin protein mutation”.
Julia Bransen and Tadesse Teferra received the Lloyd and Maxine Rooney Fellowship for student Travel 2018-19.
March 2018
Tadesse Teferra place 2nd in the Graduate Agriculture and Life Sciences category at the 21st annual Student Research Week (March 19-23, 2018) at Texas A&M University and won the Sigma XI STEM award, Universtiy-wide graduate category. The title of the poster was “Field emission – scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) as a method of screening sorghum lines with highly digestible protein mutation.”
January 2018
Katie Duke (MS student) and Suleiman Althawab (Ph.D. student) joined the Cereal Quality Lab.
December 2017
Derrick Amoako graduated from Texas A&M with a Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology. He has been employed at Frito Lay in Plano, TX since October, 2017, as a Senior R&D Scientist.
October 2017
Shreeya Ravisankar, left, took top honors in the 9th Annual Best Student Research Paper Competition at the 2017 American Association of Cereal Chemists International (AACCI) annual meeting which was held October 8-11 in San Diego, CA. Shreeya won with her oral presentation titled “Mechanisms for strong synergistic anti-inflammatory action of cereal-pulse flavonoid combinations in Caco-2 monolayer model”.
The Texas A&M Product Development team, right, took 1st place in the 2017 AACCI Student Product Development Comptition with their gluten-free, whole grain muffin pre-mix, PulCe Muffins. Members of the team are (left to right): Celeste Totten, senior Food Science student; Tadessa Teferra, PhD student in Food Science under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Awika; and Shreeya Ravisankar, PhD student in Food Science under Dr. Awika.
April 2017
Derrick Amoako also placed 2nd in the 2017 Nutrition Research Symposium and was earned the 2017–2018 Academic Excellence Award (Dr. Kate Adele Hill Memorial Scholarship).
OCTOBER 2016
Derrick Amoako (not pictured) – 1st Place, Best Student Poster Competition 2016 (AACCI Nutrition Division) and 2nd Place, 2016 AACCI Carbohydrate Division/Megazyme Award (Poster Competition)