Application of Fluorescence Spectroscopy in Food Quality and Control

Professor Romdhane Karoui is a global authority in food science research and education. In 2001, Professor Karoui integrated the research unit "Typicality of Food Products" of Clermont VetAgro Sup (France) where he conducted his Ph.D. student by studying the rheological properties and determining the geographical origin of dairy products (milk, cheese) by spectroscopic techniques coupled with chemometric tools. During his training, fluorescence and infrared spectroscopies coupled with chemometric tools have demonstrated their ability to be promising tools to study the quality of dairy products. The research work conducted on dairy products has been extended to other food products during his post-doctoral position at KU Leuven, Belgium (2004-2006) where he focused his research on finding specific and robust markers by using spectroscopic techniques for determining the quality and authenticity of different food products including egg, honey, milk, etc.
Following the interesting results that he has obtained between 2001 and 2006, Professor Karoui conducted between 2007-2009 an innovative industrial project aiming to design, develop and industrialise a miniature system based on fluorescence spectroscopy for on-line measurements of the quality of food products. The project has been awarded by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research "Category Emergence, 2007". The developed system has been applied successfully to determine the quality of both dairy and meat products.
In 2009, Professor Karoui joined the research unit "Food Science and Formulation", Gembloux Agro Bio-Tech, Liège University (Belgium) as a Senior Research Scientist where he conducted research on the use of different analytical techniques, including fluorescence technique coupled with chemometric tools, for the study of the quality of food products. In 2010, he is engaged at Artois University as a full Professor.
Professor Karoui contributed significantly to the construction of Charles Viollette Institute in 2014 and BioEcoAgro INRAe Joint Cross-Border Research Unit in 2019. As a leading educator in food science, Professor Karoui has significantly contributed to the field of food science. He has trained many PhD students, who have made their own contributions to the industry and academia. He has also given lectures on advances in food science regularly in academic institutions internationally and delivered plenary or keynote speeches at major international conferences. Since 2012, he is responsible of the professional Master « Innovation and Industrial transfer in Agro-alimentary" of Artois University.
Professor Karoui is an eminent scientist in the area of Food science. He is known for his significant contribution to the basic and applied knowledge of food quality and authenticity in relation to its structure determined at the molecular and microscopic levels. Results of his work have been published in over 400 papers including more than 160 peer-reviewed journal papers indexed by Web of Science, with an average citation of over 32 per paper (SCOPUS h-index = 43). Professor Karoui is an Editor and member of the Editorial Board for several journals (International Journal of Agricultural Science Research, Journal of Food Chemistry, Journal of Food Research, Journal of Food technology and preservation, Editorial Advisory Board for Cambridge Scholars Publishing collection of Food Science and Technology, etc.). He is also selected and listed in Scientific Encyclopedia "Who's Who in the World" (2016) and nominated in 2016 to receive the Cambridge certificate for outstanding scientific achievement and recognised, in 2020, as an ExpertScape World Expert in Food Analysis.