March 2024
Farhad successfully defended her doctoral dissertation. Congratulations Farhad!
August 2023
Welcome our newest M.S. student Yih Chyuan (Blake) Looi joining our group!
Nikole won the 2nd place award for the outstanding research poster design and development in the 2023 Crop-to-Food Innovation REEU program. Congratulations Nikole!
June 2023
Farhad is the recipient of Victor Henningsen, Sr., Graduate Student Fellowship in Food Science. Congratulations Farhad!
Purlen won the 1st place at IFT23 Product Development Division Graduate Student Research Competition. Congratulations Purlen!
Yue won the 2nd place at IFT23 Food Engineering Division Graduate Student Research Competition. Congratulations Yue!
We have a new member, Nikole! Nikole joined us from Oklahoma State University, Chemical Engineering department as a summer research scholar.
May 2023
Purlen delivered an oral presentation at the 2023 AOCS Annual Meeting held in Denver, Colorado.
Yue has been selected as a finalist at IFT23 Food Engineering Division Graduate Student Poster Competition with her project titled “Development of a Green Integrated Continuous Extraction-Reaction-Particle Formation Process using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide for Value-added Processing Waste''.
Purlen has been selected as a finalist at IFT23 Product Development Division Graduate Student Poster Competition with her project titled “Development of Novel Free-flowing Powder Lycopene Formulation via Particle Engineering using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide''.
Purlen has been selected as a finalist at IFT23 Sustainable Food Systems Division Graduate Student Poster Competition with her project titled “Developing a Green Biorefinery Approach for Rural Processing of High-Value Camelina and Sorghum Co-Products''.
Farhad has been selected as a finalist at IFT23 Carbohydrate Division Graduate Student Poster Competition with her project titled “Composite Nanoporous Starch Bioaerogels: Novel Oil Structuring Biomaterials to Develop Saturated Fat Replacers''.
November 2022
Lingyi successfully defended her doctoral dissertation. Congratulations Lingyi!
September 2022
Dr. Ciftci co-chaired the Henry Schwartzberg Green Extraction and Seperation Technologies session and delivered an oral presentation at the Conference Food Engineering (CoFE22) held in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Lingyi is the receipt of the 3rd place award at 2022 Conference of Food Engineering (CoFE22) Poster Competition. Congratulations Lingyi!
July 2022
Purlen is the recipient of the Milton E. Mohr Teaching Fellowship. Congratulations, Purlen!
Farhad is the recipient of both the Victor W. Henningsen Sr. Graduate Student Fellowship in Food Sciences and John and Louise Skala Fellowship. Congratulations, Farhad!
June 2022
We have two new members, David Jose Hernandez Menco and Shane Rice. David joined us from University of La Sabana to do his summer internship. Shane joined us from North Carolina A&T State University Biological Engineering department as part of the USDA REEU program.
April 2022
Lingyi won the 2nd place at 2022 AOCS Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division Poster Competition. Congratulations Lingyi!
January 2022
Lingyi won the 2022 AOCS Honored Student Award and Manuchehr (Manny) Eijadi Award. Congratulations Lingyi!
January 2022
Welcome our newest members, Yue Wang and Tahmasb Hatami !
Yue joined us from University College Dublin after completing her Masters. Tami is joining us from Brazil where he did his PhD and postdoc at the University of Campinas.
August 2021
Lingyi won the 2021 Skala Fellowship. Congratulations Lingyi!
August 2021
Welcome our newest Ph.D. students Purlen Sezer Okur and Farhad Alavi joining our group!
September 2019
Welcome our newest members Ádina Santana and Yih (Blake) Chyuan Looi joining our group!
June 2019
Jessica won the 1st place at IFT19 Product Development Division Graduate Student Poster Competition with her project titled “Development of Dry Free-Flowing Fish Oil-Loaded Hollow Solid Lipid Micro- and Nanoparticles Using a Novel Green Method and Assessment of Their In Vitro Bioaccessibility''. Congratulations Jessica!
May 2019
Jessica delivered a 5-min talk and a poster presentation on her project entitled “Development of a processing method to obtain high-value products from sorghum and corn distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS)” at the 2019 Distillers Grains Technology Council (DGTC) Symposium.
Jessica won the 1st place at the American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS) Industrial Oil Products Division Student Poster Competition. Congratulations Jessica!
April 2019
Dr. Ciftci has been tenured and promoted to Associate Professor.
Dr. Ciftci was elected as the Vice-chair of the AOCS Phospholipids Division.
Jessica has been selected as finalist at IFT19 Product Development Division Graduate Student Poster Competition with her project titled “Development of Dry Free-Flowing Fish Oil-Loaded Hollow Solid Lipid Micro- and Nanoparticles Using a Novel Green Method and Assessment of Their In Vitro Bioaccessibility''.
Felipe and Jessica’s project entitled “Development of a processing method to obtain high-value products from sorghum and corn distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS)” has been selected to receive the 2019 Distillers Grains Technology Council (DGTC) Graduate Student Research Scholarship!
March 2019
Jessica is now a Student Member of Gamma Sigma Delta (The Honor Society of Agriculture)!
February 2019
Dr. Ciftci received the Junior Faculty Excellence in Research award presented by ARD.
August 2018
Ali successfully defended his doctoral dissertation "Enhancing Bioaccessibility of Phytosterols Using Nanoporous Starch Aerogels and Supercritical Carbon Dioxide".
Jessica was selected as the recepient of Twila Herman Claybaugh Graduate Student Fellowship. Congrats Jessica!
July 2018
Jessica won the 1st place at IFT18 Student Research Paper Oral Competition with her project titled ''Development of Peppermint Essential Oil-loaded Hollow Solid Lipid Spheres as Natural Food Antimicrobial Against Pseudomonas Fluorescens''.
Ali won the 1st place at IFT18 Student Research Paper Poster Competition with his project titled ''Enhancing Bioaccessibility of Phytosterols Using Nanoporous Starch Aerogels''.
May 2018
Jessica was selected as finalist at IFT18 Student Research Paper Oral Competition with her project titled ''Development of Peppermint Essential Oil-loaded Hollow Solid Lipid Spheres as Natural Food Antimicrobial Against Pseudomonas Fluorescens''.
Jessica won the 1st place at the The American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS) Lipid Oxidation and Quality Division Student Poster Competition.
Ali was selected as finalist at IFT18 Student Research Paper Poster Competition with his project titled ''Enhancing Bioaccessibility of Phytosterols Using Nanoporous Starch Aerogels''.
April 2018
Jessica won Milton E. Mohr 2017-2018 Award. Congratulations Jessica!
February 2018
Ali won both the 2018 AOCS Honored Student Award and Manuchehr (Manny) Eijadi Award. Congratulations Ali!
August 2017
Dr. Ciftci delivered a talk on enhancing bioavailability of phytosterols using novel bioaerogels at the Euro Fed Lipid Congress in Uppsala, Sweden.
June 2017
Ali co-chaired the Engineering of Novel Food Process session and delivered an oral presentation at the 3rd International Conference on Food and Biosystems Engineering (FABE2017) held in Rhodes Island, Greece.
May 2017
Dr. Ciftci organized and chaired the Interfacial Phenomena in Complex Food Systems and delivered a talk at the 2017 AOCS held in Orlando, FL.
March 2017
Henok won the American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS) 2017 Processing Division Student Excellence Award. Congratulations Henok!
December 2016
Jessica completed her M.S. and staying with us for her Ph.D. Congratulations Jessica!
September 2016
Dr. Ciftci organized and chaired the Extraction of Bioactives session and delivered two oral presentations in the Encapsulation and Delivery, and Extraction of Bioactives sessions at the Conference of Food Engineering (CoFE) held in Columbus, OH.
Ali delivered an oral presentation in the Nanotechnology Applications in Food session at the CoFE.
Jessica presented a poster at the CoFE.
August 2016
Our newest member Liang Xie has joined our group to do his Masters. Liang will be advised by both Dr. Ciftci and Dr. Yue Zhang.
July 2016
Ali and Junsi made ePoster presentation at the IFT16 Annual Meeting & Food Expo.
Ali won the first place at the Graduate Student Research Paper Competition with his project titled ''Nanoporous Starch Aerogel: A Novel Material to Enhance the Water Solubility of Phytosterols'' at the IFT16 held in Chicago, IL. Congratulations Ali!
May 2016
Dr. Ciftci delivered an invited talk on the formation of hollow solid micro- and nanoparticles at the 107th AOCS Annual Meeting and Expo held in Salt Lake City, UT.
Junsi and Henok presented their research at the 107th AOCS Annual Meeting and Expo held in Salt Lake City, UT.