Singh will be presented the award in China.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Indian American Professor Emeritus R. Paul Singh, who holds dual positions in the departments of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and of Food Science and Technology at University of California Davis, has been announced as the 2015 Global Confederation for Higher Education Associations for Agriculture and Life Sciences World Agriculture Prize laureate.
“I’m deeply humbled and honored, upon receiving news of this award,” Singh said. “I’m proud of my students, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists for their numerous contributions to our research program. I’m also indebted to my UC Davis colleagues for their consistent support, which has allowed me to pursue my research and teaching activities in food engineering.”
The award was announced at the annual GCHERA conference, held this week at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon, according to UC Davis News Service. The award will be formally presented on September 20, during a ceremony at Nanjing Agricultural University, Jiangsu Province, China.
Singh’s research involves energy conservation, freezing preservation, postharvest technology, and mass transfer in food processing. His research on airflow in complex systems helped design innovative systems for the rapid cooling of strawberries, and his studies on food freezing led to the development of computer software that is used to improve the energy efficiency of industrial freezers.
According to his official website, he primarily researches transport phenomena in food processing and mathematical modeling to seek improvements in process efficiency. Under a NASA contract, his group developed food processing equipment for NASA’s manned mission to Mars. His current research is focused on physical mechanisms responsible for digestion of foods in a human stomach to develop next generation of foods with healthful benefits.
Singh garnered a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering at India’s Punjab Agricultural University, followed by a master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University, respectively. He joined the UC Davis faculty one year later, in 1975, according to the university’s news service.
In addition to a glut of other acclaim, In 2010, the Institute of Food Technologists awarded Singh the Nicolas Appert Award– the highest award given in the field of food science in the United States, while in 2011, the International Association of Engineering and Food presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the development of the food engineering profession across the globe.
1 Comment
Good….He is a great pride to india… Hope he will be acheive more in agricultural industry….
Dhivya
Bizbilla