Varsity faculty awarded by American Association of Cereal Chemists

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 24

Dr Narpinder Singh, Director Research and Head, Department of Food Science and Technology of Guru Nanak Dev University, has been awarded with the fellow of American Association of Cereal Chemists (AACC) International in recognition of his distinguished contributions in the field of cereal science and technology.

Singh is working in the areas of starch and protein chemistry, extruded products, modified starches, baked products, cereal and legumes quality, milling, gluten-free product development, selection of raw material, etc. He carried out extensive work on establishment of structure-function relationship in starch present in different crops (potato, corn, rice, wheat, field peas, chickpea, kidney beans, rice bean, black gram, amaranth, sorghum, mango kernel, unripe apples) using advanced and modern techniques. The fundamental knowledge on protein secondary structure, and structure-function relationship combined with thermal properties and rheology, was used to identify targeted application of pulse proteins in food industry. He has also used pulse protein isolates in the formulation for gluten-free products.

He has attracted around Rs 793 lakh extramural research projects as principal/co principal investigator and Rs 269 lakh infrastructural grants for his department. Two hundred and forty-five peer-reviewed research papers by him have been published in high impact journals with more than 12,000 citations and h-index of 60 on Google scholar.

The ceremony of this award will be held at the upcoming AACC international meeting at Denver, Colorado, USA. The AACC international is a global nonprofit association of nearly 2,000 scientists and food industry professionals working to advance the understanding and knowledge of cereal grain science and its product development through research, leadership, education, superior technical service and advocacy.

Singh is an internationally renowned food technologist and is the fellow of various esteemed Indian academics (INSA, NASI, NAAS and AFSTI). He also holds various prestigious awards “ICAR Rafi Ahmed Kadwai Award and JC Bose National Fellowship of Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India for outstanding research in his field.