Professor Maria Saarela
Biography
Professor Saarela joined SARDI in 2019 and her current research areas involve mainly food technology and safety. The focus is very much on applied research and problem solving and new product development for the food industry.
She was previously working at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland where she was involved in food microbiology and functional food research, including research on pro-and prebiotics and gut microbiota for over 20 years. During the past 15 years she has also been working with European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in various expert task groups related to food and feed safety and risk assessment.
She has about 130 papers in international scientific journals and 17 book chapters.
Research interests
- Value addition into plant-based materials, especially pulses (ingredient processing and new product development)
- Microbiological safety of foods and the impact of processing on shelf-life
- Lactic acid bacterial fermentation of foods
- Gut health and fibre
- Antimicrobial resistance in microbes food chain
- Research ethics
Qualifications
- Doctor of Food Sciences, University of Helsinki, 1993;
- Associate professor in microbiology, University of Helsinki, 1995;
- Courses on university pedagogy, University of Helsinki, 2013
Research affiliations
- Affiliate Associate Professor, Flinders University
- Affiliate Professor, The University of Adelaide
Professional affiliations
- Member, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)
- Member, Additives and products or substances used in animal feed (FEEDAP)
- Member, microbiology working group
- SA representative, Australian Food Innovation Network (AFIN)
