Professor of chemical sciences in New Zealand
Siew-Young Quek is a New Zealand academic and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in bioactive and functional food ingredients, lipid science and food processing.
Academic career
Quek earned a Bachelor of Science with Honours in biochemistry from the University of Malaysia, and then completed a PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Birmingham in 1999.[1][2] Quek spent four years lecturing at the University of Putra Malaysia, before joining the faculty of the University of Auckland in 2004, rising to full professor in 2020.[3][1] Quek has been a visiting scholar at Guelph Food Research Center in Canada, the University of Massachusetts and Xiamen University, China.[1] She is the editor-in-chief of the Elsevier journal Future Foods.[4] Quek is part of the Riddet Institute Centre of Research Excellence.[2]
One focus of Quek's research is functional foods, and bioactive ingredients, and methods to stabilise and deliver functional ingredients, including co- and micro-encapsulation. She also works on lipid science, and the processing and safety of food.[5]
Awards and honours
Quek won a gold medal at the Geneva International Exhibition of Invention in 2005.[2]
Quek won a University of Auckland Excellence in Teaching Award in 2007. Quek won a Gold Medal at the University of Putra Malaysia's University Invention & Research Competition in 2002, and won the 2002 National Invention and Innovation Competition on Science & Technology, run by the Ministry of Sciences, Technology and Environment of Malaysia.[1]
In 2012 she was made Fellow of New Zealand Institute of Food Science & Technology.[6]
In 2014–15, Quek was Shanghai Outstanding Overseas Scholar, and in 2017, she was the overseas expert in food science in the 100-Talent Programme of Hunan Province.[1][2]
Quek is a Guest Professor of Jiangnan University and the Oil Crops Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science.[7] From 2016 to 2021 she was an honorary professor of Jilin University.[1]
Selected works
References