Food is important to all living organisms. We humans tend to eat food not only to live, which is the physiological side of it, but also for the psychological side of emotional satisfaction.
Professor
Our first reaction to food is almost always taste, and we think of nutrition, cost and convenience later. This fascinated me from the time I decided to study food as a science. I have always been passionate about teaching food science, especially when the focus is sensory analysis.
Currently, my research emphasis is determining the emotional response of consumers during consumption of food and beverages. I am also shifting my research towards determining the relevance of sensory analysis and consumer behavior in food choice and nutrition.
Another focus of my research is to determine consumer preferences for food using multivariate statistical analyses. I study relationships between sensory data and consumer acceptability data/chemical flavor data (GC-MS). I have been working a lot on peanuts and look forward to work on Georgia peaches and blueberries.
I am originally from a state in India called West Bengal – home to the Royal Bengal Tiger. I worked in an ice cream plant as a project manager before I attended the University of Missouri to complete my doctoral studies in Food Microbiology. I love baseball and the Saint Louis Cardinals are my favorite team. I am scared of driving on highways in big cities, so my wife has to chauffeur me when we go to Atlanta!
Learn more about Koushik Adhikari. and see him in his lab in this YouTube video.