Michael Hautus is an internationally recognized expert in quantitative and experimental psychology. As a professor at the University of Auckland School of Psychology, he specializes in sensory and perceptual systems research, cognitive modelling, and analyzing detection and discrimination judgments. With over 100 publications, Professor Hautus has also contributed to research in sensory evaluation, auditory neuroscience, pain research, human memory, and decision science. His highly-cited...

Tzvi Wiesel is an experienced whisky investor and trader, focused on fine and rare bottles and casks. He is the Founder and CEO of BAXUS, a marketplace for trading high-end wine and spirits, powered by blockchain technology. Tzvi got his start in the spirits industry initially by accident, when he was staffed as a production assistant. He quickly became fascinated by the expansive whiskey collections. He launched his own whiskey fund on his own while at school at Columbia University where he...

Parvaneh Parvin is a tech-savvy problem solver with a flair for all things culinary. She studied Digital Humanities and Computer Science at the University of Pisa in Italy, where she also earned her PhD in her research into Just-in-time health feedback systems for older adults with mild cognitive impairments. But she didn't stop at algorithms and data; her deep passion for food steered her on a different path.    Pari’s journey into the world of food technology began when she joined...

Julia has recently joined SAM Sensory and Consumer Research as Research Manager, Germany. Before joining SAM, Julia graduated with a doctoral degree in Food Science & Technology from the University of Florence. Her research focused on the role of emotions, personality traits, and sensory sensitivity in children’s food preferences as part of the EU-funded project “Edulia - Bringing down barriers to children’s healthy eating”.    Julia holds a master’s degree in Human Nutrition and...

Gern Huijberts is the global innovation portfolio manager at Cargill, with responsibility for businesses in Europe, the US, Brazil, West-Africa, and Asia-Pacific. In this position, he manages the global quality organization for food safety, quality assurance and quality control as well as regulatory affairs.  In previous roles, he has worked at international food companies like Heineken, H.J. Heinz, and FrieslandCampina, in the fields of Research & Development and Quality Assurance....

Vijay Pravin is the Founder & CEO of bitsCrunch, a Blockchain Analytics and Forensics company focusing on securing the NFT ecosystem. Living in Munich, Germany for the last 10 years, and originally from India.    To date, Vijay has helped raise 6.5M USD from prominent Web3 VCs like Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Brands, Chainlink, Polygon, Crypto.com Capital, Gate.io labs, Hashkey Capital, Borderless Capital, and a few others.  bitsCrunch tackles wash trades in the NFT space,...

Lennox is the CEO & Co-Founder of Satoshi’s Index, a token-gated SaaS platform that automates portfolio management for crypto investors. In addition to this, he leads product initiatives at Starbucks Corp, and is the co-founder of NFT Seattle, the region's first large scale Web3 conference.   Lennox on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennoxmatsinde Lennox on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennoxtakura Lennox on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lennoxtakura/ Newsletter:  ...

Luiza is the International Sensory Science Manager at L’Oréal France.  She is a Food Engineer with more than 10 years of experience in Sensory and Consumer Science applied mainly in cosmetics, food, and household product categories.  She has recently been assigned the Data Steward role, being responsible for Sensory Data Acquisition, Management, and Application   To learn more about Aigora, please visit www.aigora.com

Dr. G.B. (Garmt) Dijksterhuis studied experimental psychology and methodology at the University of Utrecht and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation at the department of Data Theory at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands. He has written or co-authored some 150 publications in sensory and consumer science, statistics and psychology. He is one of the founders of the Sensometric society and was its first president, and is a member of the editorial board of the journals Food Quality and...

Carlos Velasco is an associate professor at the Department of Marketing, BI Norwegian Business School (Norway), where he co-founded the Centre for Multisensory Marketing. Carlos received his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Oxford University, after which he worked on a number of postdoctoral and consulting projects in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. His work is situated at the intersection between Psychology, Marketing, and Human-Computer Interaction, and focuses on...

Carlos Gómez–Corona is the Director Human Insights & Sensory at Firmenich. His main responsibilities are to understand the future consumption of proteins, and the perception of natural and sustainable flavors and ingredients. He has conducted research both in academia and the industry, as well as teaching in the area of sensory and consumer science, collaborating with several research groups worldwide. His publications focus mainly on consumption experience, product perception and...

Founder of a New York-based brand incubator, Mindy Yang is an advisor, investor, growth hacker, curator, and technical designer & creative director of fragranced, flavored, and functional products.   As an expert on sensory sciences, psychology, marketing, brand strategy, wellness, and immersive design, Mindy is passionate about incubating/launching brands/experiences/products by creating unforgettable, emotionally captivating signatures around the world... Making the invisible felt.   ...

Nat Cole is a cryptocurrency and blockchain educator and consultant, working in the crypto & blockchain space for around 5 years.  He is currently working on a 'Phygital' NFT Fashion project, mixing high-quality fashion design, sustainable materials, Web3, and embedded technologies.   Nat’s project NFT Clothing Club (NFTCC) is creating a unique high-quality fashion brand and community utilizing Bitcoin and the power of Stacks. His project is primarily focused on creating communities...

Nese Yurttas has worked in the field of sensory and consumer science for twenty years including the past fifteen years for Cargill, where she has built Cargill’s sensory capabilities in North America into a world-class capability. Nese leads a global community of sensory practice to build best practices and knowledge across the Globe. Across such a diverse product mix as Cargill’s, Nese must lead a team of scientists using expert sensory knowledge to identify the right sensory methods and...

Dr. Michelle Niedziela is a behavioral neuroscientist experienced in both academia and industry.  Michelle began her career as a post-doctoral fellow at Monell Chemical Senses Center working on research of functional foods. She continued her career at Johnson & Johnson where she specialized in innovation technologies for consumer products. At Mars Chocolate, Michelle worked on global sensory projects, and in her current role as VP of Research and Innovation at HCD Research, Michelle...

Amber Case studies the interaction between humans and computers and how technology is changing everyday life.  Case is currently a 2021 Mozilla Fellow working on the future of money, alternative business models for the web, and creator compensation.  Case is an internationally recognized design advocate and speaker, and the author of four books, including Calm Technology and A Kids Book About Technology. She spent two years as a fellow at MIT’s Center for Civic Media and Harvard’s Berkman...

Gern Huijberts is the global quality director for Cargill Cocoa and Chocolate, with responsibility for businesses in Europe, the US, Brazil, West-Africa and Asia-Pacific. In this position, he manages the global quality organization for food safety, quality assurance and quality control as well as regulatory affairs.   In previous roles he has worked at international food companies like Heineken, H.J. Heinz and FrieslandCampina  in the fields of Research & Development and Quality...

Dr. Vanessa Rios de Souza holds a Ph.D. in Food Science and has over 10 years of experience in R&D, consumer and sensory research across multiple food product categories and functions, with a strong background in food science and food processing. She has extensive experience in industrial, academic, and research settings. Vanessa works as a Computational Sensory Science Consultant at Aigora and before her role there she worked as a professor, researcher and as an independent CPG...

Dr. Ruth Brown is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University and an expert practitioner of state-of-the-art data science tools and the founder of the HOPE Lab. She is also the Co-Founder and Senior Advisor at Aigora. Dr. Ruth Brown-Ennis received her Ph.D. in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University.   Her general research interests focus...

Keir Finlow-Bates is the author of "Move Over Brokers: Here Comes The Blockchain" (https://mybook.to/moveover), the founder of Chainfrog Limit (one of Finland's earliest blockchain startups), and a prolific inventor of blockchain technologies with 43 patents to his name. Becoming interested in blockchain in late 2009, he has researched it full-time from 2016 onwards. Before that most of his 20-year career was spent as a software test engineer and manager, with a few short stints as a...

Dr. Tian Yu is a Computational Sensory Science Consultant at Aigora. Tian holds a Ph.D. in taste neuroscience, focusing on signal transduction. After a postdoctoral fellowship researching brain lipid metabolism, and an instructor role delving into sour taste sensing, Dr. Yu devoted herself to sensory and consumer science research to combine her love of neuroscience and expertise in analyzing data. Tian has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and one book chapter. She has presented her...

As President/Owner of Storlietelling Jean uses story-based techniques to design and facilitate highly engaging strategic planning, innovation, and team-building sessions. She also runs training programs in business storytelling skills for clients that span boutique consulting firms to Fortune 500 companies across a range of industries. Jean has facilitated innovation in consumer packaged goods, supplier, and direct marketing companies, focusing on building their innovation pipelines. She...

Dr. Delarue’s research focuses on methods to measure sensory perception and preferences and on their effective use in food design. He seeks to develop high validity consumer-oriented methods. In particular, his research explores the role of context in hedonic measures using immersive environments and digital technologies. He also works to develop and validate rapid and flexible descriptive analysis methods with applications to new product development and consumer research. Using these...

Nicolas Hartmann is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vly. Based in Berlin, the FoodTech startup aims to disrupt the dairy industry by developing novel alternatives using food science, fermentation, and data. Nicolas holds a Master’s degree from the University of Oxford and is passionate about a vegan lifestyle.   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-hartmann-4b594b78/ Website: https://www.vlyfoods.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vlyfoods/ Facebook:...