Dr Dolapo Oladiran, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Consumer and Food Sciences, received an oral presentation excellence award at the 19^th World Congress of Food Scientists & Technologists (IUFoST), held in India in October 2018.

“I am indeed honoured and humbled by this recognition. The IUFoST presented a great opportunity to share our research and receive some good feedback on the quality of work that we do, and this makes this award significant for me. I am very grateful to my supervisors, Prof Naushad Emmambux and Prof Riëtte de Kock for their guidance, support and the opportunities they have given me to showcase myself as an upcoming young researcher.”

Dr Oladiran presented a part of her PhD research, entitled “Nutritional, oral processing properties and satiety promoting potential of extruded cassava-soy porridge with wheat bran” at the congress. Her PhD research examined how extrusion cooking can be used to modify the functional properties of non-starch polysaccharides in food by-products. The study also assessed the effect of changes in functionality of the instant products on nutritional and oral processing properties and the oral processing properties were related with satiety. The aim is to give more insight into the potential of food by-products as a component of extruded starch-rich foods, to produce instant products that can promote satiety and lower glycaemic index,” she explained.

The research for her PhD degree, which was conferred in April 2018, was funded by the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security. She also received the John Taylor Award for best PhD oral presentation at the second New Voices in Cereal Science and Technology in South Africa Symposium in May 2017, and was one of 1 000 participants from 129 countries selected to participate in the 1^st UNLEASH Innovation Lab, held in Denmark in August 2017.