Researcher biography

Heather attained her Bachelor of Technology degree in food engineering from Massey University. She then spent 10 years in gelatine manufacture in various roles including quality assurance, production management and process improvement engineering. In 2015 she completed her PhD study into the rheology of biopolymer soft particle suspensions, supervised by Professor Jason Stokes at the University of Queensland. She has since continued at UQ in postdoctoral roles investigating the relationship between rheological properties, food structure and sensory perception of both real food products and model soft particle suspensions. The key outcomes from the project have allowed our industry partner to move towards the rational design of food products. As an Advanced Queensland Research in Industry Fellow, she is currently developing an antiviral surface cleaner that will decrease the survival time of SARS-Cov-2 on surfaces.