ProfessorColm O'Donnell

Colm O'Donnell BE PhD CEng FIAE is a Full Professor of Biosystems & Food Engineering. He leads the Quality and Processing Pillar in UCD's Institute of Food & Health. His previous UCD roles include Head of the UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, and UCD College of Engineering & Architecture Vice-Principal(Teaching & Learning). He was awarded an EU Comett Research Fellowship in process analytical technology at the Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (INRA) in Paris and worked in the processing industry prior to joining UCD. He has co-ordinated or led UCD's involvement in a wide range of internationally funded research and educational projects including EU H2020, Tempus, Comett, Erasmus, Marie Sklodowska-Curie and Alfa programmes with industry and academic partners. 

His research group works on a range of Biorefinery, Biomass and  Process Analytical Technology (Spectroscopy and Spectral Imaging) a funded by EU H2020, Irish Research Council, Food Institutional Research Measure, Enterprise Ireland and industry. He has a strong track record of mentoring members of his research team for prestigious Marie Sklodowska-Curie and European Research Council awards. He leads the Quality and Processing Pillar in UCD's Institute of Food & Health. He is the UCD Principal Investigator in the Dairy Processing Technology Centre (www.dptc.ie) and the EU funded DiTECT project, and Co-ordinator of the EU funded FreshProof project.

He was designated as a Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters based on his rankings within the top 1% highly cited researchers. He was appointed Editor of the International Journal of Food Properties and Associate Editor of Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural & Biological Engineers. He is a member of the Editorial board of Food Engineering Reviews (Springer), Foods (MDPI) and the Encyclopedia of Agricultural, Food & Biological Engineering (Taylor & Francis). He is a fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering, member of the Food Processing Technical Committee of the American Society of Agricultural & Biological Engineers and Chair of the International Federation for Process Analysis & Control Dairy Processing Technical Committee.