Careers: The physics of food (V0326)
Marco Morgenstern, a physicist from Crop & Food Research, now called Plant & Food Research, describes how a broad knowledge of the sciences can be of benefit for a research career.
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How can physics and engineering be involved in food science? Marco Morgenstern applies his physics knowledge to food every day. Find out why a broad knowledge of the sciences can be useful for a research career.
Transcript
Marco Morgenstern (Plant & Food Research): My own background is really not in food at all. My own background is in physics, in applied physics. So when I did my degree, I was hoping to do something with technology, and I came to New Zealand and found that a lot of research is centred around food and agriculture, and so it was a logical step to apply the engineering skills in the food area.
I’m very excited to work with engineers together with the food scientists to put this together to get a better understanding of how our chewing influences our digestion.
I think what’s really exciting about the future of our science is the way that the different disciplines are coming together – the way that, say, chemistry and physics is coming together and working in the field of nutrition – so working alongside nutritionists and physiologists to understand how the human body behaves and to understand how we can make better foods, more healthy foods and add to a healthier living.
If I were to do my time over again, I would certainly make sure that my field would not be too narrow. Since all these things are working together now, these days, and real advances are going to come, not from one single discipline, but from many disciplines together.
If you want to work with people who are experts in their field, it helps if you know a little bit about those fields and how you can apply that to your own field.
Metadata
- Published:
- 19 November 2007
- Copyright:
- The University of Waikato
