Burdock Group continues to encourage graduates and undergraduates to pursue a career in food ingredient safety and regulations by offering its Student Travel Award. During IFT 2019 Expo held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in June, two exemplary candidates, Xingyi Jiang and Zhou “Mona” Zou, were honored with the Burdock Group IFT 2019 Student Travel Award. Mona was given the award for the Food Laws & Regulations Division and Xingyi for the Toxicology & Safety Evaluation Division. Each award recipient received $1000 to cover travel expenses to the Expo, along with a commemorative plaque and a copy of Casarett & Doull’s Toxicology textbook. Congratulations to Xingyi and Mona on their achievements!
Xingyi Jiang
Florida State University
Department of Nutrition, Food & Exercise Sciences
Xingyi is currently a doctoral student in Nutrition and Food Science and Graduate Teaching Assistance at Florida State University. Her projects relate to food adulteration and allergen detection. During her master thesis, Xingyi developed an indirect competitive ELISA to detect porcine hemoglobin in meats. This development will be beneficial in solving food safety issues, fighting food fraud and improving food quality.
Zhou “Mona” Zou
University of Florida
College of Agricultural & Life Sciences
Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition
Mona is currently a Lab Assistance and Graduate Researcher at the University of Florida’s Food Science and Human Nutrition Department. Mona has led the research and development of novel low-calorie juice beverages while at the University of Florida. Her thesis is designed to address lowering calories and sugar with a novel, plant-based sweetener. Her overall goal is to understand the characteristics of the potential sweetener and to demonstrate the application of the sweetener on different beverages.