BIORESOURCE PROCESSING - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- BPA General Manager
- General Manager for the Bioresource Processing Alliance
- General Manager of Seafood Innovations Ltd
As well as the General Manager for the BPA, Anna is also the General Manager of Seafood Innovations Ltd and a Board member for Wool Industry Research Limited. Anna was previously a Director for Food Industry Enabling Technologies and spent two years as a Technology Scout and Technology Transfer Manager for a large multinational pharmaceutical company. Before this, Anna was a Business Manager working as a conduit between industry and the scientists at The University of Auckland. Anna worked for seven years at The Foundation for Research Science and Technology (now Callaghan Innovation), in the early years working in the TechNZ space and in later years, running the Global Expert programme for the northern half of the North Island, sourcing experts from around the world to help New Zealand companies solve technical and business challenges. In 2006, Anna set up her own start-up manufacturing business, which she ran for five years and subsequently sold in 2010.
Job Titles:
- Science Leader for the Bioresource Processing Alliance Stewart
Dr Stewart Collie, AgResearch Science Leader for the Bioresource Processing Alliance Stewart is a senior scientist with the Food and Bio-based Products Group at AgResearch, and leader of the Textiles science team. He has worked in wool textile research for most of his career specialising in thermophysiological comfort properties of apparel systems, knitting technology and product development, intelligent wearable materials (‘smart textiles'), intrinsically conductive polymers and applications of electrically conductive textiles.
Job Titles:
- Plant & Food Research / Science Leader for the Bioresource Processing Alliance
Susan leads Plant & Food Research's Marine Products team, a group focused on developing nutraceuticals, cosmetic ingredients, biomaterials, and novel enzyme extracts from marine by-products. She specialises in bridging the gap between laboratory science and the large-scale manufacture of products. Her team uses in-depth understanding of marine molecules (lipids, proteins, peptides, glycosaminoglycans and enzymes, and their derivatives) to develop new products and the industrial processes to make them. There is an emphasis on zero waste, and ‘green' processing solutions to reduce energy usage, reduce pollutants, and create safe factory work environments.
Job Titles:
- Principal Project Engineer at Callaghan Innovation 's Integrated Biotechnologies Group
Teresa is a Principal Project Engineer at Callaghan Innovation's Integrated Biotechnologies Group, where she specializes in the application of process engineering to the production of high value products from biological resources. Her expertise spans across multiple areas, including supercritical fluid extraction, chromatography and fractionation, as well as food technology, product formulation and membrane separations. One of Teresa's professional interests is hemp and cannabis processing, where she has developed expertise in decarboxylation, extraction and downstream processing of this material to produce high cannabinoid-containing products.
Garth runs his own company providing research, governance, consultancy and strategic advice services in the science, agriculture, manufacturing, food and wool fields. He is immediate past-President of the Royal Society of New Zealand and chair of the Research and Commercialisation Committee at Lincoln University. Garth's other current external appointments include: Chair of the NZ Synchrotron Company, Chair of the Canterbury Development Corporation and Canterbury Regional Innovation System, and Chair of NZ Food Innovation South Island. He was World President of the Manchester based Textile Institute in 2000-2002 and chaired the Marsden Fund Council from 2004-2009. Garth holds Doctorates from four separate Commonwealth universities and has spent many years inventing and commercialising industrial technologies in partnership with companies. He was made a Member of NZ Order of Merit, (MNZM) in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the wool industry.
Job Titles:
- Company Director
- Consultant
Kevin is a company director and consultant in research, development and technology in the primary industries. He is a director of Seafood Innovations Ltd, and the Plant Biosecurity CRC. He is a member of the Investment Advisory Panel of the Primary Growth Partnership and the Strategic Research Committee of FAR. Kevin is also a reviewer for MBIE Research and Development grants. Before retiring he was Group Director R&D for the NZDB, Chief Executive of NZDRI and Managing Director of ViaLactia Biosciences Ltd. He also had extensive experience with the International Dairy Federation. Kevin is a Fellow of NZIFST and NZIC and a member of SCENZ-IChemE in New Zealand.
Li Day, AgResearch Dr Li Day is the Sector Manager for Food & Fibre at AgResearch. She has over 20 years of experience in material physical biochemistry, food structure, processing and nutrition. She has provided extensive research innovation advice and technology transfer to global food companies. Her passion is to partner with the Agri-food industry to bridge the gap between science discovery and commercial applications. She received her PhD from the University of Reading, UK, and previously worked for Campden BRI in UK and CSIRO in Australia.
Job Titles:
- Chief Engineer for the Integrated Bioactive Technologies Group of Callaghan Innovation Research
Owen is the chief engineer for the Integrated Bioactive Technologies group of Callaghan Innovation Research and Technical Services. This group specialises in near to market research and development into the application of bioprocessing to biologically-derived raw materials to make high value nutraceuticals, food ingredients and biopharmaceuticals. His work was instrumental in establishing a supercritical extraction industry in New Zealand to make such products, which has led to a Royal Society NZ Science & Technology Silver Medal, the NZIC Fonterra prize for Industrial and Applied Research and becoming a Fellow of IPENZ.
Job Titles:
- Head of Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Canterbury
Peter is the Head of Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Canterbury. His research interests are in bioprocess engineering looking at both the production of biochemical and environmental biotreatment technologies. Specific projects that he is active on include biofiltration, microbial cellulose and microbial fuel cells. Professionally, Peter is involved in the IChemE-NZ board and various review panels for MBIE including the National Science Challenges. He is a Fellow of both IChemE and IPENZ.
Job Titles:
- Food Processing Engineer
- Plant & Food Research
Richard is a Food Processing Engineer, a member of the Food Solutions team in the Food and Products Technology group, a part of the Food Innovation Portfolio at Plant & Food Research. He is a mid-career scientist, having joined Plant & Food Research in 2018 to focus on technoeconomic analysis, and food process engineering, in the plant protein space in particular. Previously his focus was protein processing of a different sort, specifically processing of hides and skins. Richard grew up in Wellington before coming to Palmerston North to complete a BTech in Bioprocess Engineering followed by MTech Bioprocess engineering in 2000. From there he worked at the Leather and Shoe Research Association for 17 years, first as a research officer then, after completing a PhD in enzyme processing lambskins in 2008, as a research scientist. His professional interests are oriented to analysis of process engineering, heat and mass transfer and kinetic modelling, and the use of technoeconomic analysis to tie concepts together to produce viable commercial outcomes.