WiSys President Arjun Sanga presents Grace Lewis, assistant professor of animal and food science at UW-River Falls, with the Carl E. Gulbrandson Innovator of the Year Award during a ceremony Thursday at UW-Superior. The award honors the research efforts of Lewis and five of her students. Contributed photo.
 

Faculty member, students lauded for research efforts

WiSys award recognizes work to develop multiple food products

July 26, 2024 - A University of Wisconsin-River Falls faculty member and five of her students are being recognized for their creative, award-winning research that has led to a pending patent for a tasty food product they created.

Grace Lewis, assistant professor of animal and food science, and students Yihong Deng, Ashley Gruman, Anna Lokken, Katherine Petersen, and Rafael Larosiliere received the Carl E. Gulbrandson Innovator of the Year Award during the WiSys SPARK Symposium at UW-Superior on Thursday. The award is given annually by WiSys to Universities of Wisconsin faculty, staff and students who have made exemplary contributions as innovators. It is named for the former managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation who supported WiSys.

Lewis and her students placed first at the Dairy Management Inc. New Product Competition in July 2023 for developing RootCurd, a ginger-coagulated dairy product based on an ancient Chinese recipe that is 89% dairy and is designed to ease consumers’ anxiety. RootCurd took many hours to develop and lots of trial and error to turn into its end product. 

RootCurd contains 20 grams of dairy protein per serving. Ginger provides the product with its slightly spicy flavor; lavender helps reduce stress.

“I’m really proud of my students for working so hard to create a high-quality product,” Lewis said. “Their effort shows that high-level research and hard work can make a positive impact on the dairy industry.”

Lewis also is being recognized by WiSys for other research efforts. She has a pending patent for her work in conjunction with UW-Madison in which milk fat is used as intravenous nutrition for people who can’t digest foods normally. Another of her projects that uses milk protein to enable better absorption of medicine and foods by humans has received accolades and could be adopted by the food and pharmaceutical sectors.

Lewis began work at UW-River Falls in 2021. Since then she has received numerous accolades and awards, including second prize for the prestigious IDF Professor Pavel Jelen Early Career Scientist Prize in 2023, funding for her work in the university’s Dairy Innovation Hub, and a WiSys Ignite Grant for 2023-24. 

When she was first contacted by WiSys officials about the Carl E. Gulbrandson Innovator of the Year Award, Lewis figured the organization was asking her to present again at its SPARK Symposium, which she has done in the past. 

“Then they told me that me and my students were being honored with this (Gulbrandson) award,” Lewis said. “I was surprised in a good way. I am very, very thankful.”

Lewis’ students were surprised and honored as well by the award saying the acknowledgement for their hard work is gratifying. 

“I felt a lot of pride for myself, my teammates and Dr. Lewis,” said Petersen, of Clear Lake, who graduated with a food science and technology degree in May 2023 and works in research, development and application for the food company Kerry Group. “It really means a lot to all of us to get this recognition.”

As Anna Lokken and her classmates began research on RootCurd, they had no idea how the effort would develop and that their work would lead to winning a national competition and a pending patent.   

“When we started this project, I don’t think any of us thought it would take off the way it did,” said Lokken, of Litchfield, Minn., who graduated in December 2023 with a food science and technology degree and now works as a research and regulatory affairs specialist at Anderson Chemical Company. “It’s truly an honor to receive this award and continue to be recognized for all of the work we put into RootCurd.”

Developing RootCurd into a tasty food that could be sold on a commercial level was anything but easy, students said. They spent countless hours devising more than 40 different versions of the product, a process that included plenty of trial and error. 

When they entered the Dairy Management Inc. New Product Competition last summer with RootCurd, students had low expectations. They were surprised and proud when they won the national competition. Motivated by that experience, Lewis and her students decided to seek a patent for RootCurd and partnered with WiSys to do so. 

“This group of students was so motivated and so much fun to work with too,” Lewis said. “I hope winning this award will show them how gifted they really are.”

Petersen said she wasn’t sure at first she wanted to be part of the RootCurd team. Now she is so thankful that she was. 

“It has opened up so many opportunities and allowed for so many different experiences,” she said. “You never know what can come from taking advantage of an opportunity that is presented to you.”