Food Hydrocolloids Trust Medal Speaker
John Mitchell
Professor
University of Nottingham (United Kingdom)
John Mitchell obtained a BSc in physics at the University of Newcastle and carried out his PhD work at the University of Nottingham on the rheology of hydrocolloid gels. He has worked for Unilever on milk proteins at interfaces and for Masterfoods on gelling agents in petfoods. He was one of the founding editors of the journal Carbohydrate Polymers and has co-authored around 150 publications, the majority of which relate to the behaviour of biopolymers in food relevant systems. He is currently a Vice President of the European Polysaccharide Network of Excellence (http://www.epnoe.eu/ ) which aims to integrate aspects of polysaccharide research across the European Union. He heads the Food Structure Group in the Division of Food Sciences at the University of Nottingham. This Group works across the water content range with a major interest both in biopolymers as thickeners and gelling agents and the applications of polymer material science to food biopolymers in low water environments. Mitchell's current research interests include:
- Structure and fracture of low water content biopolymer films
- Comparisons between starch and cellulose
- Consequence of mixing of viscous biopolymer solutions with water
- Physically modified xanthan gum
