Polymer and Food Rheology

Rakesh K. Gupta is Professor and George B. & Carolyn A. Berry chair in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at West Virginia University (WVU), where he has been teaching since 1992. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Delaware in 1980 and his B. Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India in 1975, both in chemical engineering. Before coming to WVU, he taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo for almost 11 years. He has also worked briefly for Monsanto, DuPont and Braskem America. His research is focused on the processing and rheology of polymers and foods and also on polymer composites and nanocomposites. He has authored or coauthored over 135 journal papers, 80 conference proceedings papers, and 22 book chapters on these topics. He also holds four U.S. patents. He is the coauthor of the textbook Fundamentals of Polymer Engineering (now in the third edition) and coeditor of Handbook of Polymer Nanocomposites and Graphite, Graphene and their Polymer Nanocomposites. While his polymer rheology research has been supported by a variety of Federal, State and private sources, his food rheology research has primarily been funded by Kraft Foods and Mondelez International. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vinyl and Additive Technology, and he is a Fellow of the Society of Plastics Engineers.

Mahesh Padmanabhan is Research Fellow in the areas of Rheology, Texture, and Physical Sciences at Mondelez International, based in East Hanover, New Jersey; he also holds an Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering appointment at West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia. He has been with Mondelez (previously Kraft Foods and Nabisco Foods) for over 28 years, applying the principles of rheology and physical sciences, developing methods and insights for a range of industrial problems and food systems: from ingredients, formulation, structure-property relations, processing, manufacturing, quality, to product texture related to consumer perception. Before joining Mondelez, Dr. Padmanabhan led the Rheology Lab of the Adhesives Division at the National Starch & Chemical Company, Bridgewater, New Jersey, following a postdoctoral fellowship in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota. He received his B.Tech. (Hons.) degree (1985) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, M.S. (1989) and Ph.D. (1992) degrees from the University of Minnesota (St. Paul) all in agricultural engineering and an M.S. (1993) in chemical engineering, also from the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis).