Nitish Nag
Senior AI Scientist, Zepp Health
International Advisory Board
Who are they?
They are a group of experts in the field of food consumer science.
All Open Calls proposals are subject to a peer reviewing process by IAB members.
Via the integration of bioscience and technology, I aim to catalyze each individual towards their highest potential in life. My focus is on keeping people at their best health through personalized methods that leverage the latest computational techniques encompassed within a holistic approach. At COMFOCUS, I work on advising regarding food computing research to improve personalized health.
Pilar Rico-Castro
PhD on Science and Technology Public Policies
Pilar Rico-Castro holds a PhD on Science and Technology Public Policies. She is the head of the Unit for Open Access, Repositories and Academic Journals at the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).
At the national level, she coordinates the National Scientific Journals Assessment process, the National digital platform for academic publishing RECYT, and the National Open Access Repositories Aggregator RECOLECTA. She is part of the National Open Science Committee (COS), and a national expert at the Programme Committee for Research Infrastructures of Horizon Europe. She represents FECYT at the EOSC Association, OpenAIRE, LA Referencia and COAR. She joined the COMFOCUS IAB in March 2021.
Sylvain Delplanque
Senior Researcher, Swiss Center for Affective Sciences
I studied human physiology and psychophysiology at the University of Lille1 (Lille, France), completed postgraduate studies in neuropsychology and cognitive neurosciences, and received a PhD in cognitive sciences from the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France) in 2004. I then joined the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva as a post doc. I am now a senior researcher at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences where I coordinate a scientific project EmOdor (Emotion & Odor) that results from a partnership between the University of Geneva and Firmenich S.A.
Laurette Dubé
Director at McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics
Dr Laurette Dubé is professor and also Director at McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Originally trained as a nutritionist with graduate degrees in finance (MBA), marketing (MPS), and behavioral decision making/consumer psychology (PhD), Laurette Dubé is Full Professor and holds the James McGill Chair of consumer and lifestyle psychology and marketing at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University. She is also the founding chair and scientific director of the McGill Center for the Convergence of Health and Economics (MCCHE). Professor Dubé is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has received The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Roland Pieruschka
Senior Researcher, Forschungszentrum Jülich
Roland is plant ecophysiologist with experience in phenotyping, plant physiology, ecology, systematics and biogeochemistry. Expert in measuring plant traits on leaf, plant and canopy level. Additional scientific background includes interdisciplinary work with modellers, engineers and chemists. Roland received his PhD at the University of Düsseldorf in Germany in 2055. He did his Postdoc at the Carnegie Institution of Science in Stanford in the USA and works since then at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany as plant phenotyping scientists and research infrastructure manager. Roland has worked in and managed the national German (DPPN), European (EPPN, EPPN2020) Plant Phenotyping Networks, he is a co-founder of the International Plant Phenotyping Network (IPPN), and manager of the ESFRI research infrastructure project EMPHASIS that aims to build a pan-European infrastructure.
Damion Dooley
Ontology Development Lead at the Centre for Infectious Disease Genomics and One Health
Damion Dooley is an Ontology Development Lead at the Centre for Infectious Disease Genomics and One Health, a 20 member group of bioinformatics and ontology researchers at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada. Since 2013, he has been developing biomedical ontology to support rapid enteric pathogen whole genome sequencing and analysis. Damion founded the FoodOn food ontology and the Joint Food Ontology Workgroup to facilitate foodborne disease, agriculture, nutrition and food science data sharing. FoodOn, adopting the many food description facets of LanguaL, a popular food composition thesaurus, is now being used and supported by a wide variety of research and inter-agency data sharing projects. He also participates in the operational side of the OBOFoundry ontology consortium, and in curation of the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). He looks forward to a future of FAIR, harmonized data that reduces barriers to discovery and insight in a rapidly changing world.
Liesbeth Zandstra
Professor Food Reward and Behaviour at the Division of Human Nutrition & Health
Liesbeth Zandstra is Professor Food Reward and Behaviour at the Division of Human Nutrition & Health, with a special interest in making the healthy choice the preferred choice. Liesbeth has a part time appointment with Wageningen University and also works at Unilever Foods Innovation Centre Wageningen as Science Leader Reward and Behaviour.
Liesbeth Zandstra obtained her PhD degree in the area of food acceptance, appetite control and the regulation of food intake (2000) from Wageningen University, Wageningen (NL). Directly after her PhD, she joined Unilever R&D in Vlaardingen. In Unilever, she gained extensive experience in science, resource and programme management. She had different roles with increasing responsibilities towards managing larger teams and bigger and more complex research projects. She is currently Science Leader Reward & Behaviour. As of the 1st of November 2017, Liesbeth also has a part time appointment as Professor Food Reward and Behaviour at Wageningen University. Her work focuses on long-term scientific challenges to find new ways to make the healthy and sustainable choice the easy and preferred choice.
Wim Verbeke
Professor of Agro-Food Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Ghent University
He graduated from Ghent University with a Master of Science degree in Bio-science Engineering and obtained a Master of Business Administration in Marketing Management from the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. He is currently full professor of agro-food marketing and consumer behaviour, making use of his complimentary background in natural and social sciences. He is involved in academic teaching and scientific research in the field of economics, food marketing, market research and consumer behaviour. The main focus of his research is on food consumer science, stakeholder and consumer decision-making, perception and acceptance of agriculture and food production technologies, and food products or product concepts. Specific research interests are on the impact of information and communication about food quality, safety, health and sustainability, and the impact of marketing activities and individual difference variables on perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of people as citizens and consumers towards food, food production and food processing methods. His research group has been a partner in multiple European and national research projects dealing with food consumer science and he wishes to contribute that expertise to COMFOCUS through his involvement in its IAB.