Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Food Science
Division of Food, Nutrition & Exercise Sciences (FNES) - CAFNR //
Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering - College of Engineering
Research at a glance
Area(s) of Expertise
Research Summary
Corn processing, preparation and stability of natural food colors, effects of processing on bioactive compounds in food, application of induction heating for food processing and process simulations.
Pavel Somavat has a joint appointment in the Division of Food, Nutrition & Exercise Sciences and the Department of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering. His research interests are multi-disciplinary and include extraction optimization of anthocyanins and other polyphenolic compounds from pigmented corn varieties and utilizing them for novel, value-added applications as active food ingredients. Examples include formulation of anthocyanin-based natural red food colorants for the economic replacement of synthetic FD&C Red 3 and FD&C Red 40 dyes and evaluation of their thermal and storage stabilities in different food matrices. His group also specializes in environmentally friendly soy processing for improved product development and in performing techno-economic feasibility analyses of novel bioprocesses.
Areas of expertise include:
- Food and bioprocess engineering/technoeconomic simulation analyses
- Corn and soy processing for value-added bioproducts
- Natural food colorants, active food ingredients
Educational background
- Ph.D., Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- M.S., Information and Communications Engineering, Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen, Germany
- B.E., Electronics and Communication Engineering, Maharshi Dayanand University, India