LAURA
ROMAN RIVAS

Ramón y Cajal researcher at University of Valladolid (UVA), where I am establishing my research team focused on elucidating the structure-function-digestion relationship of plant-biopolymers and their sustainable processing. I am currently supervising 3 PhD students and several MSc students. I earned my PhD in Food Engineering (UVA, Spain) receiving the UVA Extraordinary PhD award in 2018. Then, I joined University of Guelph (Canada) as a Postdoctoral Researcher, where I developed my research in carbohydrate biochemistry and food processing for 29 months. This position allowed me to deepen into the research area of carbohydrates for better health, and work in a multidisciplinary team, in close contact with the international food industry. After that, I worked at the Food Science department of Aarhus University (AU, Denmark), conducting a postdoctoral project fully funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (322.460€), of which I was the principal investigator (PI), and I continued managing from UVA, including co-supervising students. This project allowed me to extend the reach of my research to plant proteins and their interplay with carbohydrates. In 2021, I won the prestigious L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science research award (14.783€), chosen as one of the top 3 young female scientific talents in Denmark. In 2022, I also received the internationally recognized Nils Foss Talent Prize (15.000€) as promising young researcher, for my work on the application of analytical technology to improve the quality of food systems. I am the Principal Investigator of 5 competitive research projects, and, to date, I have secured 829k € as PI. I have recently obtained the Spanish National Project and a competitive Spain-Portugal Interreg EU project. I have published 54 SCI research papers (54% as first/corresponding author), 80% of which published in top 25% journals Q1, and 43% of which published in top 10% journals D1, with an average FWCI of 1.55 and 32 documents in the top 25% most cited worldwide. 70% of this research was in international collaboration. My research has been presented 40 times in scientific conferences, 7 times as invited speaker at international conferences. My scientific training at cutting-edge and renown international research institutions (Purdue, Guelph and Aarhus Universities) allowed me to acquire unique knowledge in the mechanistic understanding of the molecular structure of complex carbohydrates; their isolation and analysis of molecular attributes, including weight, hydrodynamics, distribution of external and internal chains of starch and monomer composition and linkage analysis of non-starch polysaccharides. I worked on the digestion kinetics of glycemic carbohydrates and the use of thermo-rheological techniques to unveil the molecular reassociations determinant of the texture and aging of carbohydrate-rich foods. I have demonstrated expertise in creating starch- and protein-based ingredients and foods using twin-screw extrusion, a green and cost-effective technology. Thus, I am able to understand the molecular details of structure formation in plant-based food systems, with a focus on polysaccharides structure-function relationships and improved health. Society Contribution: I have participated as researcher or team member in 6 contracts with national and international food companies. Thus, my research is well connected with industrial needs, with some of the results published in open access SCI journals, like Bonduelle’s and Dawn Foods’ work. I have worked on projects financed by renown companies from the cereal and pulse industry (Bonduelle, Siro, Dacsa), and by various prestigious foundations and institutions [Novo Nordisk, L’Oréal Foundation, UNESCO, Good Food Institute (GFI)], successfully providing an academic-industry-society knowledge transfer.