Alona Chernyshova completed her B.S. degree at the National Agriculture University in the Ukraine in 2003 and an M.S. degree in Plant Breeding and Genetics with Jean-Luc Jannink at Iowa State University in 2006.  Under the co-advisement of Drs. Mauer and Weil, she is testing the hypothesis that NIR spectra can be used to predict starch digestibility profiles of intact corn kernels (Project 29).  Factors that impact digestibility and are under genetic control can modify NIR spectra and, therefore, mutants with novel properties should be distinguishable from the rest of the population.  This data should allow us to derive a calibration equation that accurately predicts starch digestion profiles by NIR.  The developed NIR models can then be used to predict SDR without tedious, time consuming, and expensive chemical assays.

Dr. Reeta Davis obtained her B.S. in Food Science and Quality Control in 1999, and M.S. in Microbiology in 2003, from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India.  She has also completed Ph.D. in Food analysis and Quality assurance from the Defense Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore, India. Her Ph.D. program was in Biotechnology on Polyhydroxyalkanoates at the molecular level carried out at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore, India.  She joined Dr. Mauer’s lab in July as a Post Doctoral associate on FT-IR detection of Food borne pathogens.

Dr. Kaho Kwok Kaho earned his B.S. in chemistry from Eastern Michigan University; M.S. in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, and Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Northern Illinois University.  Kaho is a PostDoc with Professor Lynne Taylor at Industrial and Physical Pharmacy and Professor Lisa Mauer.  His research is to understand the fundamentals of the effects of deliquescence on the stability of pharmaceutical and food ingredients.  Deliquescence lowering occurs in multicomponent systems and hence they are more susceptible than single component systems to physical and chemical instability at lower relative humidity conditions.  Phase diagrams of these systems are generated to better understand the relationship between the water activity and the composition of these systems.  Effort has also been put into understanding the surface properties of different pharmaceutical and food ingredients when deliquescence happens.  The major focus is to determine the origins of the interfacial forces under different RH conditions using atomic force microscopy.