The University of Lleida (UdL) Food Technology Professor and Agrotecnio research group leader Olga Martín Belloso has been distinguished by the International Association for Engineering and Food (IAEF), with the Life Time Achivement Award for her career. Martin received this recognition, along with seven other people (two women and five men), during the 12th International Congress of Engineering and Food held in Nantes, France last week. The professor of the UdL, and currently vice-rector of Knowledge Transfer, has become the first person in Spain to be awarded this association and one of the few women who have received this award, which consists of a commemorative plaque.
The IAEF is a global body represented by professional food engineering associations from different countries, including the Spanish Food Engineering Society, of which Martin is the president. Among the main tasks of the organization is the four-yearly organization of its international congress, the most important in the world. People awarded by the association must have been nominated unanimously or by the majority of members of the IAEF and have achieved or made outstanding contributions in the field of food engineering, in fields such as scientific publications, patents or having won national and international awards.
A Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Olga Martín became the first Spanish woman to be a member of the International Union of Food Science and Technology-IUFoST (IPA). The previous year she had been elected to the United States Food Technology Institute (IFT). She has been a professor at the UdL since 1992, and was selected in the first call of the ICREA Acadèmia Programme of the Government of Catalonia that recognizes excellence in research and leadership capacity and in 2018 the Catalan Government awarded her the Narcís Monturiol Medal, in recognition of her contribution to the development of science and technology. She is also the principal investigator of Agrotecnio’s Novel Technologies for Food Processing research group. Her research focuses on developing safe and healthy new food products through the application of new techniques.
Text: Premsa UdL / Agrotecnio
Photo: Martín collecting the commemorative plaque of the prize, IAEFF