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Research Group Members

Postdoctoral Research Associates

Dr Karina Salek

Karina is an RA on the EU H2020 funded project “Novel, sustainable marine bio-surfactant / bio-emulsifiers for commercial exploitation (MARISURF)”. Karina is responsible for the screening of a large marine bacterial collection to identify strains that produce promising biosurfactants, and their subsequent characterization and functional testing as emulsifying, foaming and gelling agents.

Dr Georgios Dalkas 

George is a visiting researcher in the group. Previously he was an RA within the Food proteins research group working on a BBSRC funded project “Edible oleogels for reduction of saturated fat”. George obtained BSc. in Chemistry,  MSc. in Medicinal Chemistry: Drug Design and Development, and PhD in Computational Biology, all from the University of Patras, Greece. Prior to joining the group George was a researcher at 3BIO – Genomic and structural bioinformatics, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). George is carrying out molecular dynamics simulation research aimed at understanding the mechanisms of self-association in sterol+sterol ester self-associating oleo-gelators.

Dr Héctor Mora Gallego

Hector is an RA on the IUK funded ” Structured collagen as novel fat replacer in healthy sausages with maintained appeal” project. Hector obtained a Ba in Biology from the University of Alcala (Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain, and MSc and PhD in Food Technology, University of Girona, Spain. Hector’s role is to develop new sausage formulations containing collagen based fat replacers, and to optimize the organoleptic and texture properties of the formulation.

Dr Kelly Stewart

Kelly is a part-time RA on the MARISURF project. Prior to this Kelly was a joint RA with Prof. Nik Willoughby’s group on the IUK/BBSRC funded project “Functional mycoprotein from the Quorn fermentation process as novel sustainable ingredients”. Kelly’s role involves identification of the optimum separation and purification methods for fungal protein from co-products streams derived from different parts of the Quorn process. Kelly remained in Prof. Willoughby’s group at the end of the project as an RA working on an IBioIC funded project on separation of astaxanthin from crustacea shells.

Project Manager

Mrs Lucy Bryden

Lucy is the Project Manager for the H2020 Marisurf project. She has extensive experience of managing multipartner EU FP7 projects, and is responsible for the day to day administrative management of the Marisurf project.

PhD Students

Catherine Russell

Catherine has a BSc(Hons) in Biological Sciences (Food Science) and is studying for a PhD on surfactants derived from marine bacteria.

Zhengyi Hou

Zhengyi has a BSc(Hons) in Food Science, Technology and Management from Heriot-Watt University, and  Masters in Food Production from Nottingham University. His PhD ill involve a study of the production and functional properties of milk protein/plant protein co-precipitates.

Previous Group members

Dr Claire Munialo

Claire was an RA on the IUK/BBSRC funded project “Functional mycoprotein from the Quorn fermentation process as novel sustainable ingredients”.  Claire obtained her BSc in Animal Science (1st Class), Lord Egerton University, Kenya, MSc(Distinction) in Nutrition & Food Science, University of Huddersfield, UK and PhD in Food Science, Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands. Claire’s role involves the functionality testing of fungal protein from co-products streams derived from different parts of the Quorn process.

Currently, Claire is a lecturer in food Science at Coventry University.

Dr David Stewart

David was an RA on the IUK funded ” Structured collagen as novel fat replacer in healthy sausages with maintained appeal” project. Currently, David is a lecturer in Food Science at Coventry, University.

Dr Julian Lonchamp

Julian was an RA working on the EPSRC Foaming and Fat Replacer Ingredients, two IUK project with Marlow Foods (Quorn) and the Marisurf EU project. Julian left us in 2016 to take up a lectureship in Biochemistry and Food Science at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.