Nutrition and Food Sciences (Graduate Program)

For information regarding the UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM, click here.     

Program Overview

The School of Nutrition and Food Sciences offers advanced studies in food chemistry, food quality, product development, byproduct utilization, food safety, foods for health and combating effects of obesity, food microbiology, sensory analysis and consumer research, and nutrition and food biotechnology. Students may also study specific foods such as seafood, rice, dairy products, sweet potato, peppers, meat, or others. Training and research in the basic sciences of biology, physics, and chemistry, and the natural sciences of biochemistry, microbiology, toxicology, and engineering are incorporated into graduate studies which allow specialization in specific areas of student interest.

The department is well equipped with research laboratories for food chemistry, food microbiology, food analysis, tissue culture/hybridoma, food engineering, nutrition and processing, and computerized sensory analysis. Pilot food processing facilities have freezing, mixing, forming, mince recovery, batter and breading, packaging, and other processing equipment. Other LSU units such as the Schools of Animal Sciences; Human Ecology; Plant, Environmental & Soil Sciences; Veterinary Medicine; and Renewable Natural Resources; the Departments of Biological & Agricultural Engineering and Oceanography & Coastal Sciences; Audubon Sugar Institute; and Pennington Biomedical Research Center also provide faculty expertise and laboratories for analysis and pilot processing activities for food.

Administration

Admission

Applications and supporting materials for all graduate study must be submitted through the online application site for the LSU Graduate School. Official transcripts, official test scores, and other materials that come from third-party sources must be mailed to: LSU Office of Graduate Admissions, 114 West David Boyd Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. These paper documents are stored electronically and departments have access to all materials submitted by and/or on behalf of a student applying to graduate study.

Applications for admission are received and evaluated by the school for each semester (fall, spring, summer). Applicants must adhere to the application deadlines established by the Graduate School.

Students seeking admission must submit satisfactory credentials from previous study, have a minimum of 150 verbal GRE score and 150 quantitative GRE score, three letters of recommendation that describe the student’s ability to pursue graduate studies in food or nutrition science, and a statement of purpose or interest in the desired specific area of food or nutrition science. The statement of purpose satisfies the writing sample requirement for admission. International students whose native language is not English must also submit TOEFL, IELTS, or PTE scores that meet the Graduate School minimum requirements.

When all admission requirements are met and documents have been submitted, full admission will be considered by the school’s graduate faculty members. Final admittance to the program must be supported by a member of the school’s graduate faculty, who serves as the student’s major advisor. If a student does not meet all requirements, he or she may be admitted provisionally (e.g., on probation if the GPA is not 3.0 or higher or if the GRE is not 1000 or higher). Students are admitted for fall, spring, and summer semesters, but admission depends upon the availability of space in the program of each individual professor. The lack of space in a program is sufficient justification to deny admission of an applicant.

Financial Assistance

Financial assistance may be available for students. Support may be available through the school or other units in the form of research or teaching assistantships. Financial assistance is on a competitive basis so early applications are encouraged. Each professor determines the availability of space and financial assistance for the graduate students in his/her program. Students on assistantship receive full tuition waivers but are responsible for university fees, insurance, and other costs. To ensure consideration for financial aid, all application materials should be submitted as early as possible before the actual admitting semester. The deadlines for admission are in March for the fall semester and in October of the previous year for the spring and summer semesters.

Graduate Faculty

(check current faculty listings by department here)

Achuyt Adhikari (3F) • Food microbiology and safety, environmental monitoring and control of food borne pathogens, thermal and non-thermal processing-effects on microbial food safety
Giovanna Aita (M) • Biomass conversion, antimicrobials for food, characterization of antimicrobial resistant bacteria
Donal F. Day (M) • Industrial microbiology, polysaccharide production and industrial enzymology, biofuels
Charles Boeneke (M) • Dairy products and processing; dairy food product development; sensory evaluation of dairy foods; regulatory training and dairy plant inspection.
John W. Finley (3F) • Low calorie ingredients and functional foods mediating impacts of obesity, low calorie carbohydrates and lipids causing caloric dilution in foods, bioactive ingredients influencing fat deposition, antiinflammatory food formulations influencing effects of obesity and diabetes
Elizabeth Gollub (3F) • Diet and lifestyle strategies, “small changes”, and habit formation techniques; evaluation of community-based healthy eating and physical activity programs
Denise Holston (3F) • Community-based approaches to obesity prevention in rural communities; policy, systems and environment change strategies for obesity prevention; develop and test interventions to address healthy eating among low-income adults and children.
Bailey Houghtaling (6A) – Policy, systems, and environmental approaches to improve dietary quality; dietary behavior; rural health; implementation science; key stakeholder/intermediary perspectives; capacity-building; mixed-methods; health disparities. 
Aryana Kayanush (M) Functional dairy foods; probiotics and probiotic properties; culture bacteria and their attributes for food manufacturing and quality; non-thermal processing technologies.
Michael J. Keenan (M)
Joan King (M) • Food chemistry and safety, ingredient development with sweet potato and rice components especially resistant starch, oxidation products in processed and stored foods, aflatoxin in grains and nuts, off-flavors in catfish, ozone processing
Carol J Lammi-Keefe (M) • Omega-3 fatty acids in pregnancy and development, diabetes, postpartum depression, obesity, Functional foods
Jack Losso (M) • Food chemistry and biochemistry, protein biotechnology, recovery of bioactive compounds for food and biomedical applications, bioavailability and molecular basis of antiangiogenic dietary bioactive compounds, food fortification
Roy J Martin (EM)
Erin McKinley (6A) • Survey instrument development; breastfeeding behaviors; breastfeeding self-efficacy among pregnant women and new mothers; using health behavior theory to create breastfeeding education programs for pregnant women.
Carol Elliot O’Neil (M) • Diet and Health of Low Income Women, Food Security, Nutritional Epidemiology, Community Nutrition, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Witoon Prinyawiwatkul (M) • Sensory analysis and consumer acceptance of foods and beverages, new and value added food product development, functional/physical-chemical characteristics of food ingredients
Diane Sasser (M) • Systems Approach to Childhood Obesity Prevention
Subramaniam Sathivel (M) • Food engineering with emphasis on design and development of food processing unit operations; preservation and packaging of foods (coatings, edible films, microencapsulation); thermal, rheological, and functional properties of ingredients and foods; development of nonfood materials from biological wastes including biodiesel
Georgianna Tuuri (M) • Examines food preferences and develops and tests nutrition and exercise interventions to promote healthy diets and active lifestyles, conducts community-based research with children and caregiver   
Louise Wicker (M) • Food Chemistry, especially pectin chemistry and pectic enzymes, foods for health, valorization of fruits and vegetables to increase consumption, identifying barriers to healthy food choice, innovation through private – public collaborations 
Watts, Evelyn (6A) • Seafood quality and safety. Applied research to promote and develop technologies to improve Louisiana Seafood Industry by enhancing quality, product development, co-product recovery, shelf-life, and promoting underutilization of invasive species.
Wenqing Xu (6A) • Food microbiology and Food safety. Practical research focusing on consumer food safety
Zhimin Xu (M) • Food micro constituent analysis, extraction and characterization of functional food components, evaluation of health benefits of functional components using chemical and biological models 

Programs

• Nutrition and Food Sciences, M.S.

• Nutrition and Food Sciences, Ph.D.