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The primary responsibilities of Professor Valente Alvarez,
Department of Food Science and Technology, are conducting
extension work and research to advance the dairy industry
in Ohio. His extension work includes implementing training
courses on GMPs (good manufacturing practices) and HACCP (hazard
analysis critical control points) programs for plant management
personnel. He is instructor of the workshop “Introduction
to Developing a HACCP Plan” and the short course “Cheese
Making Processing and Safety”. His current research projects
are in quality and shelf life of PET-bottled milk and processing
factors affecting physico-chemical properties of Swiss cheese.
Professor Alvarez advises graduate students and teaches FST
610, Processing of Fluid Milk and Related Products, and FST
210, Evaluation of Dairy Products.
In the past two years, Dr. Alvarez was the Resident Director
of the OSU Study Abroad Program “NAFTA and Rural Development
in Mexico” that is offered every summer. Through these
activities, he had the chance to interact with several institutions
in Mexico that invited him to give talks related to his research
program at OSU. Last summer, while Dr. Alvarez was in Mexico,
he met with members of the organizing committee of the III
International Congress in Biochemical Engineering who invited
him to give the opening conference of the congress. This was
the first time the congress was organized outside of Mexico
City and the interest was to attract attendees from technical
universities and institutes of the country. Since the United
States and Mexican food industries have a strong economic
relationship, they asked Dr. Alvarez to give a talk in this
area. Two other faculty in the department, Drs. David Min
and Steve Schwartz, joined him to give presentations on their
areas of expertise. There were about 1500 attendees that included
faculty, researchers and students. An interesting part of
their trip was, that after their presentations, Drs. Alvarez,
Min and Schwartz had the chance to talk to the attendees about
their programs and OSU. Everybody was interested in learning
about OSU. They also had the opportunity of visiting the famous
pyramids in the city El Tajín that was the capital
of the Totonac culture. The Totonac are Native American people
from the state of Veracruz, Mexico. “Totonac” is
also the name of their native language.
Dr. Alvarez had lunch with students and faculty at the Congress.
Dr. Alvarez had time for a visit to the famous pyramids in
the city El Tajín .
Photos Provided by Prof. Alvarez
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