{"id":11331,"date":"2024-09-11T09:15:22","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T14:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=11331"},"modified":"2024-09-11T09:15:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T14:15:22","slug":"uw-river-falls-faculty-member-students-lauded-for-research-efforts","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-river-falls-faculty-member-students-lauded-for-research-efforts\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-River Falls faculty member, students lauded for research efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
WiSys President Arjun Sanga presents Grace Lewis, assistant professor of animal and food science at UW-River Falls, with the Carl E. Gulbrandson Innovator of the Year Award during a ceremony July 25, 2024, at UW-Superior. The award honors the research efforts of Lewis and five of her students. Contributed photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WiSys award recognizes work to develop multiple food products<\/h2>\n

A University of Wisconsin-River Falls faculty member and five of her students are being recognized for their creative, award-winning research that has led to a pending patent for a tasty food product they created.<\/p>\n

Grace Lewis, assistant professor of animal and food science, and students Yihong Deng, Ashley Gruman, Anna Lokken, Katherine Petersen, and Rafael Larosiliere received the Carl E. Gulbrandson Innovator of the Year Award during the WiSys SPARK Symposium at UW-Superior on Thursday. The award is given annually by\u00a0WiSys<\/a>\u00a0to Universities of Wisconsin faculty, staff and students who have made exemplary contributions as innovators. It is named for the former managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation who supported WiSys.<\/p>\n

Lewis and her students placed first at the\u00a0Dairy Management Inc. New Product Competition<\/a>\u00a0in July 2023 for developing\u00a0RootCurd<\/a>, a ginger-coagulated dairy product based on an ancient Chinese recipe that is 89% dairy and is designed to ease consumers\u2019 anxiety. RootCurd took many hours to develop and lots of trial and error to turn into its end product.<\/p>\n

RootCurd contains 20 grams of dairy protein per serving. Ginger provides the product with its slightly spicy flavor; lavender helps reduce stress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud of my students for working so hard to create a high-quality product,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cTheir effort shows that high-level research and hard work can make a positive impact on the dairy industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis also is being recognized by WiSys for other research efforts. She has a pending patent for her work in conjunction with UW-Madison in which milk fat is used as intravenous nutrition for people who can\u2019t digest foods normally. Another of her projects that uses milk protein to enable better absorption of medicine and foods by humans has received accolades and could be adopted by the food and pharmaceutical sectors.<\/p>\n

Lewis began work at UW-River Falls in 2021. Since then she has received numerous accolades and awards, including second prize for the prestigious\u00a0IDF Professor Pavel Jelen Early Career Scientist Prize<\/a>\u00a0in 2023, funding for her work in the university\u2019s Dairy Innovation Hub, and a WiSys Ignite Grant for 2023-24.<\/p>\n

When she was first contacted by WiSys officials about the Carl E. Gulbrandson Innovator of the Year Award, Lewis figured the organization was asking her to present again at its\u00a0SPARK Symposium<\/a>, which she has done in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen they told me that me and my students were being honored with this (Gulbrandson) award,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cI was surprised in a good way. I am very, very thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis\u2019 students were surprised and honored as well by the award saying the acknowledgement for their hard work is gratifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt a lot of pride for myself, my teammates and Dr. Lewis,\u201d said Petersen, of Clear Lake, who graduated with a food science and technology degree in May 2023 and works in research, development and application for the food company Kerry Group. \u201cIt really means a lot to all of us to get this recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Anna Lokken and her classmates began research on RootCurd, they had no idea how the effort would develop and that their work would lead to winning a national competition and a pending patent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started this project, I don\u2019t think any of us thought it would take off the way it did,\u201d said Lokken, of Litchfield, Minn., who graduated in December 2023 with a food science and technology degree and now works as a research and regulatory affairs specialist at Anderson Chemical Company. \u201cIt\u2019s truly an honor to receive this award and continue to be recognized for all of the work we put into RootCurd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Developing RootCurd into a tasty food that could be sold on a commercial level was anything but easy, students said. They spent countless hours devising more than 40 different versions of the product, a process that included plenty of trial and error.<\/p>\n

When they entered the Dairy Management Inc. New Product Competition last summer with RootCurd, students had low expectations. They were surprised and proud when they won the national competition. Motivated by that experience, Lewis and her students decided to seek a patent for RootCurd and partnered with WiSys to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis group of students was so motivated and so much fun to work with too,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cI hope winning this award will show them how gifted they really are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petersen said she wasn\u2019t sure at first she wanted to be part of the RootCurd team. Now she is so thankful that she was.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has opened up so many opportunities and allowed for so many different experiences,\u201d she said. \u201cYou never know what can come from taking advantage of an opportunity that is presented to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by UW-River Falls University Communications and Marketing<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwrf.edu\/News\/Faculty-member-students-lauded-for-research-efforts.cfm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WiSys award recognizes work to develop multiple food products A University of Wisconsin-River Falls faculty member and five of her students are being recognized for their creative, award-winning research that has led to a pending patent for a tasty food product they created. Grace Lewis, assistant professor of animal and food science, and students Yihong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":11334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[100],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-11331","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-river-falls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/11331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=11331"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=11331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}