Gustavo V. Barbosa-Cánovas

Biological Systems Engineering
Techological Advances in the Food We Eat

Gustavo Barbosa-Canovas

Dr. Gustavo Barbosa-Cánovas has pioneered research in pulsed electric fields and high pressure processing of foods during the last fifteen years and his work at Washington State University has become central to the research in this area of food production. He is currently investigating high pressure temperature sterilization in low acid foods, such as egg-based products and selected vegetables. He is also exploring means to extend the shelf-life of pasteurized milk by combining heat pasteurization with pulsed electric fields. Other nonthermal technologies currently under scrutiny are ultraviolet pasteurization, ultrasound decontamination, oscillating magnetic fields, and hurdle technology.

For the past twenty years, Dr. Barbosa-Cánovas has been studying some key properties of powders, such as compres-sibility, flowability, segregation, and attrition and has developed indexes and mathematical models demonstrating these qualities. He has also investigated particle-size distribution in selected food powders, the affinity of binary food powder mixtures, interactions among food particles and the effects of processing on the microstructure of food powders.

In terms of the physical properties of foods, he has worked on the visco-elastic properties of food gels, the rheological properties of some selected dairy products and the functional properties of some dairy products including fat substitutes.

Contact Information
Gustavo V. Barbosa-Cánovas, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biological Systems Engineering

Washington State University
PO Box 646120
Pullman, WA 99164-6120

Telephone: 509-335-6188
Fax: 509-335-2722
E-mail: barbosa@wsu.edu

Safety and Security

Gustavo Barbosa

Dr. Gustavo V. Barbosa-Cánovas received his B.S. in mechanical engineering at the University of Uruguay and his M.S. and Ph.D. in food engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He was an assistant professor at the University of Puerto Rico from 1985-1990, during which he was granted two National Science Foundation (NSF) awards for research productivity. Currently, Dr. Barbosa-Cánovas is a professor of food engineering and director of the Center for Nonthermal Processing of Food (CNPF) at Washington State University. He also serves as editor of the Food Engineering Book Series published by Springer, and of the Food Preservation Technology Food Preservation Series published by CRC Press. He has edited fourteen books in the field of food engineering and is the author of Food Powders, Food Plant Design, Dehydration of Foods, Non-thermal Preservation of Foods, Pulsed Electric Fields for Food Preservation, Unit Operations in Food Engineering and three lab manuals. Barbosa-Cánovas is an IFT Fellow, member of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology, member of the Uruguayan Academy of Engineering, and a Fulbright Scholar. He is also an international consultant for the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and a consultant for several major food companies in the United States and abroad.

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