Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the food industry has a workforce…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** the food industry has a workforce need GAP for food engineers, which is being filled by students with chemical or agricultural engineering background. However, these students need to be trained in food science principles to understand the effect of processing on functional/nutritional quality, shelf-life, and sensory attributes of food. This project will develop a research and extension experiences for undergraduates (reeu) program to train ~32 undergraduates with chemical engineering, agricultural engineering, or food processing background in the cross-disciplines of food engineering and chemistry over four years. The objectives of this 10-week summer reeu program are to: increase participants' food science knowledge, develop their interest for graduate education, help them understand land-grant university missions, enhance their career skills, and sustain our mentoring relationships. The students will gain experiential learning through working on industrial-based projects and extension activities, touring local food companies and extension offices, attending a series of professional development activities, and networking with faculty and peer students. The faculty mentoring team will develop a mutual-mentoring relationship with these generation z students through dual-faculty-mentoring (chemistry and engineering) and peer-mentoring approaches. This program will be the foundation of a long-term strategic goal of developing a collaborative undergraduate program with the departments of biosystems engineering & soil science and chemical & biomolecular engineering at the university of tennessee. Such training programs will help attract and recruit high-quality engineering students to pursue graduate education in food science and develop a strong workforce of food engineers to meet processing innovation demands in the food industry.