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:...

Bo Li is currently a Senior Behavioral Scientist at Dell Technologies where he leverages behavioral science to create better customer experiences for consumers who shop for Dell products online. Previously, Bo was a Behavioral Economist at Eli Lilly & Company where Bo conducted behavioral science research to help patients be more adherent to medication. Bo started his career as an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Louisville. Bo obtained his Ph.D. from the University...

Dawn is a skilled Sensory and Consumer Scientist with 15+ years of hands-on experience designing, executing, and interpreting multi-faceted research studies to solve business challenges. She is passionate about exploring data sets to make stories come to life.   Dawn studied mathematics and chemistry at DePauw University and received a Ph.D. in food science with a sensory emphasis from UC Davis. Dawn’s doctoral research focused on the relationships between vineyard yield and Cabernet...

Daniel Protz is the Founder & CEO of FlavorWiki. He holds a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford Business School. Daniel started his career in computer-driven commodity trading before moving into the e-commerce and digital industries. Since 2015, Daniel has been working enthusiastically towards democratizing the world of consumer understanding and building a better purchase experience for consumers around the world. His professional background includes top...

Benjamin is a technology enthusiast with a passion for empowering developers to build innovative solutions. A long-time open source advocate, he co-founded the Eclipse IoT Working Group in 2011 and grew, from scratch, a vibrant open-source community of hundreds of developers and dozens of deeply engaged companies. He is currently working at Microsoft as a Principal Program Manager for Azure IoT, where he is leading developer engagement initiatives with some of the top communities and...

Dr. Helene Hopfer is the Rasmussen Career Development Professor and Assistant Professor of Food Science at Penn State where her research group studies product- and human-inherent factors that affect perception. Her research focuses on the human-food interface, and how food composition and food structure affect human perception and food choice, particularly, aroma and flavor. Combining human sensory and consumer science with analytical chemistry, materials science, and multivariate statistics,...

John Fuisz is the CEO of Veriphix.  John has a diverse background, with an undergraduate degree in Physics from Georgetown, a JD from Catholic University, a Legal Masters from George Washington.  John was previously a board member at Fuisz Technologies, a drug delivery company that helped originate soft chew vitamins.  During that time John was also an IP litigator and consulted on IP strategy.  Now, at Veriphix, John studies belief change in population with applications to market research.  ...

Valerie is MMR’s Global Sensory Director, leading one of the largest and most innovative teams of sensory experts in the world, with sensory hubs in Europe, the US and Asia and with over 20 trained sensory panels.   Valerie grew up in the south of France and trained as a food scientist in Burgundy, where she immediately fell in love with Sensory, as a discipline that uniquely blends the rigor of science, experimental design and statistics with the fascinating world of the psychology of...

Dr. Nick Zacharov is a lead technologist at FORCE Technology, SenseLab, Denmark. With an academic background in electroacoustics, acoustics, and signal processing, Nick has broad industrial experience in the audio profession. Having held engineering and managerial posts at Nokia and Genelec, Nick co-founded FORCE Technologies SenseLab in 2007, providing world-class listening tests and sensory evaluation services to the audio community.    He holds several audio patents and has more than 90...

Professor Charles Spence is a world-famous experimental psychologist with a specialization in neuroscience-inspired multisensory design. He has worked with many of the world’s largest companies across the globe since establishing the Crossmodal Research Laboratory (CRL) at the Department of Experimental Psychology, at Oxford University in 1997. Prof. Spence has published over 1,000 academic articles and edited or authored 15 books including, in 2014, the Prose prize-winning “The perfect...

Yizhou Ma is a PhD candidate at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His PhD research focuses on the adaptive control of 3D food printing. In the past, Yizhou worked as a R&D scientist at Gastrograph AI and obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in food science. His professional pursuits center around data-driven research and sustainable system design for food productions. He is also the co-host of the podcast "Food in the Hood," where Yizhou and his friend Amanda Sia discuss...

Liz Glenn is a Sr. Sensory Scientist in the Consumer Product Intelligence Team at Land O’Lakes, Inc.  The team’s mission is to translate human perception and consumer insights into product experiences that delight consumers.  Liz leads product guidance research for both innovation and established products for the butter & spreads business.  Working for a farmer-owned food & agriculture cooperative celebrating its 100th year presents intriguing product development challenges—how do you...

In the 90s we had Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsey usher in the era of the shouty, angry, passionate celebrity chefs. By the early 2000s, Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal brought about a change in the way we look at fine dining experiences and culinary creativity. And to date, their disciples (the top restaurants in the world) continue to expand upon their work. So what is the future? What is the next leap forward in Gastronomy? A chef who believes in “improving global wellbeing...

Martin Kern holds a PhD in agricultural science, is a certified enologist, and has been a Managing Director of SAM International since 2005. Today, SAM is a member of Eurofins Scientific with more than 15 of its own facilities, where it forms an International Business Line providing Sensory and Consumer Research to its customers worldwide with a global network of about 120 partners in more than 65 countries.   Martin provides valuable consulting in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry,...

Nazimah Hamid is a Professor of Food Science at Auckland University of Technology.  Her research encompasses how processing techniques can influence physical, chemical, and flavour qualities of food. Her expertise in sensory and flavour science uses a combination of sensory and instrumental flavour analysis to examine and predict the relationships between food composition, sensory perception, and flavour of a variety of processed and minimally processed foods. She has worked with a variety of...

Lori Rothman is the owner of Lori Rothman Consulting, where she helps companies develop consumer-preferred products and packages. She has a B.S. from Cornell University in Nutritional Science and a M.S. from the University of California, Davis in Food Science. Lori is also an adjunct instructor in Sensory Evaluation at Dominican University, in River Forest, IL.   Lori is a Food Scientist and an experienced professional in the areas of Consumer Science and Sensory Evaluation, specializing in...

Trey Sanders, RD and certified food scientist, is a Research and Development Manager for Bulletproof 360. Trey graduated with undergraduate degrees in sensory science and dietetics before completing his master's in Food Product Development, Modification & Acceptability. He has spent the last 10 years integrating sensory science and nutrition into product development, including roles at Wonderful Pistachios & Almonds and Continental Mills. Trey’s previous sensory experience has...

Dr. John Prescott is director of TasteMatters Research & Consulting, and author of Taste Matters: Why We Like The Foods We Do. Since 2014, he has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of Florence, Italy, where he has been an external adviser to, and collaborator on, the multi-centre Italian Taste project. John has a conjoint professorial appointment in the psychology department of the University of Newcastle (Australia). John has extensive experience teaching full and short...

Kevin Kantono is a Sensory Scientist in Arla based in the Arla Innovation Center in Aarhus, Denmark. Kevin graduated with his doctorate degree from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand and now is the principal sensory scientist for Arla's business transformation program Calcium. He’s also leading Arla’s sensory and consumer science research program in collaboration with local and international universities.   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkevink/   To learn more about...

Julia Tyrpin is the Director of Sensory Science for Griffith Foods North America. She is a seasoned sensory professional with over 30 years’ experience in the food industry; with the last 20 focused in Sensory Science. Julia has held sensory roles in CPG companies such as Wrigley and Diageo as well as on the supplier side with Product Dynamics (currently Brisan Group). Her current role at Griffith Foods includes managing sensory teams in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. that support Griffith...

Michel’s career has focused on Consumer & Product Research & Sensory Design. He has held a number of senior research positions in the industry, including Director of Insights & Sensory Design at Danone. He is also a former Head of Product research & Sensory Design capability at Unilever. Since becoming an Independent Consultant, Michel shared his expertise with research teams around the globe. His focus is to help teams overcome their challenges by bringing an external and...