Sundaram Gunasekaran

Program Affiliations

• Biological Systems Engineering
• CALS International Programs
• Food Science

For Additional Information, please see my Extended Home Page.

Education and Certificates

• B.E. (Ag.) 1977 – Agricultural Engineering, TNAU, India
• M.E. 1981 – Agricultural and Food Engineering, AIT, Thailand
• Ph.D. 1985 – Agricultural Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Fields of Interest

• Engineering properties and quality of food and biomaterials
• Rheology of food and other macromolecular systems and hydrogels
• Structure function relationships in foods
• Novel and value-added bioprocess engineering
• Sensors and instrumentation

Teaching

• BSE364: Engineering Properties of Food and Biological Materials
• BSE365: Measurements and Instrumentation
• BSE441: Rheology of Foods and Biomaterials (also ME441 and FS441)
• BSE991: Graduate Research Seminar

Publications

(See www.foodeng.wisc.edu for a complete list of published papers and .pdf files)

Books

• Gunasekaran S and MM Ak. 2002. Rheology and Texture of Cheese. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

Other Publications

• Ni H and S Gunasekaran. 2004. Image processing algorithm for cheese shred evaluation. Journal of Food Engineering 61:37-45.
• Ould Eleya MM, S Ko and S Gunasekaran. 2004. Scaling and Fractal Analysis of Viscoelastic Properties of Heat-Induced Protein Gels. Food Hydrocolloids 18(2):315-323.
• Kuo M-I and S Gunasekaran. 2003. Effect of frozen storage on physical properties of pasta filata and non-pasta filata Mozzarella cheeses. Journal of Dairy Science 86(4):1108-1117.
• Ay C and S Gunasekaran. 2003. Numerical method for determining ultrasonic wave diffusivity through coagulating milk gel system. Journal of Food Engineering 58(2):103-110.
• Yu C and S Gunasekaran. 2003. Modeling of melt conveying in a deep-channel single-screw cheese stretcher. Journal of Food Engineering 61(2):241-251.
  Ould Eleya, MM and S Gunasekaran. 2002. Gelling properties of egg white produced using a conventional and a low-shear reverse osmosis process. Journal of Food Science 67(2):725-729.
• Turhan M and S Gunasekaran. 2002. Kinetics of in situ and in vitro gelatinization of hard and soft wheat starches during cooking in water. Journal of Food Engineering 52(1):1-7.
• Gunasekaran S, C-H Hwang, and S Ko. 2002. Cheese melt and flow measurement methods – recent developments. The Australian Journal of Dairy Technology 57(2):128-133.
• Konuklar G and S Gunasekaran. 2002. Rennet-induced milk coagulation by continuous steady shear stress. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 250(1):149-158.

Selected Awards and Honors

• International Dairy Foods Research Award, ADSA, 2003.
• Samuel C. Johnson Distinguished Research Fellow, 2001-2004.
• Fulbright Fellow, 2000.
• Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Award, UW-Madison, 1999.
• New Holland Young Researcher Award, ASAE, 1996.
• Superior Paper Award, ASAE, 1995 and 1987.

Expertise Summary

My primary interests are in the area of engineering properties of food and biomaterials with special emphasis on rheological properties. We study and characterize food gels and other macromolecular systems in order to better understand their structure function relations and to engineer value-added food and non-food products. In the area of biopolymer gels we are investigating potential applications of preparing encapsulated microparticles and nanoparticles and controlled delivery of bioactive compounds.

We also investigate heat and mass transfer and related unit operations in food and biprocessing. In the area of instrumentation and sensors we focus on nondestructive evaluation of properties and quality of food materials and development of biosensors for measuring certain allergens and toxins. Please see our web page for more information: www.foodeng.wisc.edu.