Hello, I am Shinya Ikeda. I recently joined the USDA–ARS as a research chemist. The main objectives of my research are to elucidate how cranberry fruit quality is related to cranberry product quality and to assist the development of processing technologies that improve cranberry product acceptability and nutritional value. I also plan to look into how cranberry product quality is related to genetic characteristics of different varieties and field conditions/practices in collaboration with other scientists in our group. I am very excited to have this opportunity for multidisciplinary collaboration involving cranberry growers and processors.

I am a food physical chemist by training. I earned my Ph.D. in Agricultural Chemistry from the University of Tokyo. After that, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University and the University of Tennessee, as a research scientist at a food ingredient company in California, as a faculty member of 3 different universities in Japan, and as an Assistant Professor of the Department of Food Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. During this time, my primary research focus has always been on to improve the quality and health impact of food products based on physicochemical approaches. Additionally, working with food manufacturing companies to help their product development/improvement efforts was also an integral part of my job while I was in academia. In the past several years, I collaborated with soil scientists and plant biologists to understand how fertilization practices on the farm impact the quality of potato-based food ingredients and products such as potato starch and fries. This research made me realize the importance for a food scientist like myself to go out to the farm and understand how food quality depends on what happens on the farm.

Please feel free to contact me via email at shinya.ikeda@usda.gov or sikeda2@wisc.edu. My office is located in the Department of Food Science of the University of Wisconsin–Madison at 1605 Linden Drive in Madison.

This article was posted in Cranberry, Other News and Resources and tagged Cranberries, Shinya Ikeda.