Gateway Day – Food and Nutrition USQ Toowoomba

Teacher Professional Development

Food science and nutrition’s professional development day will be presented by Dr Polly Burey and Dr Sunil Panchal.  Both are current lecturers at USQ and have knowledge of the high school curriculum.  They will be able to demonstrate knowledge and key experiments that will further your and your students understanding on the subject.  Dr Polly also hopes for the University’s new 3D food printer to make an appearance, as well as help advise you on the best experiments and equipment to use in the classroom.

• 10.00am – Start:  please arrive 15 min. beforehand
• 12.00pm – Lunch will be provided in the form of a voucher to use on campus where you will have the opportunity to experience USQ’s facilities
• 12.45pm – Return from lunch and continue
• 3.00pm – Finish

Below are some of the subjects that will be addressed:

• Components in food and their purpose (macro and micro nutrients)
• Food structure and texture (jelly, marshmallow, mayonnaise)
• Food and sensory evaluation
• Nutrition, functional foods and nutraceuticals

Dr Burey is a chemical and materials engineer with expertise in developing fundamental understanding of the relationships between formulation, microstructure, processing and rheological behaviour of food materials, developed over an 18 year industry-focused research career.  Her research typically informs new product and process development.  Dr Burey joined the University of Southern Queensland in 2017 where she leads the Food Waste Valorisation Research Program Team and the new BSc Food Science major.  Her current research interests lie in the development of useful products and energy offsets from food excess and processing by-products, specifically ingredients, nutritional products and composite materials, including bioplastics.

Dr Sunil Panchal is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southern Queensland within Functional Foods Research group.  Dr Panchal’s background is the identification of foods as potential medicines for chronic diseases such as obesity and inflammatory bowel disease.  He has characterised health benefits of many foods, food components and extracts in animal model over the past 6 years and has the same focus during his PhD since 2008.  He has been working with different food industries over the years in conducting pre-clinical studies.  His current research objectives include translation of animal studies to develop products and provide knowledge to the community for improving health.  He has been working in the Food Waste Valorsation team to identify potential products for these translations and also working with researchers at University of Southern Queensland to establish a Clinical Nutrition Research Centre for conducting human trials with functional foods.

Places for this opportunity are limited so sign up now to avoid disappointment.

Please note that the listed cost is for Gateway Schools.  Cost for non-gateway schools is $47.29 (inc. GST & booking fee).