The researcher is currently Director of the Master’s Program in Food Science at the Austral University of Chile, and is dedicated to studying the properties and components of native Chilean berries.
Millaray Mariqueo, Science in Chile.- Professor and researcher Dr. Kong Shun Ah-Hen studied in Germany, where he completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies. He came to the Universidad Austral de Chile through a contest, and has worked on the creation of the Master’s Program in Food Science.
The Master’s Program in Food Science was created in 2012; In 2014 the first graduates graduated. The Program was accredited for the first time in 2016 for 4 years until November 28, 2020, “at that time I was director of the Graduate School, so after leaving the School Directorate, I assumed the direction of the Program, and I have been here since January 2017. A change was due in 2020, but when the pandemic arrived, the reaccreditation process had already begun, so I continued with the direction, ”he mentions.
The Program reaccreditation process ended in November 2022 and the Program is currently accredited for 6 years until November 3, 2028.
“We always seek continuous improvement, and we are interested in the internationalization of the Program; We are glad to have been able to attract foreign students from various Latin American countries who are interested in studying with us at the UACh; We have graduates from Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Venezuela and of course also from Chile. And we want to maintain this international label”.
The academic mentions that they also seek to link the Program with the doctorate in the same area; this is currently being processed.
The researcher mentions that one of the characteristics of the Program that the students repeatedly highlight refers to food safety, “what the students have let us know is that they are very interested in this line of research, which is very important for the food industry. Of the three lines of research, the areas of safety and quality are of great interest among students, that is what distinguishes us”. Although it is true, everything has to do with food processing, maintaining safety throughout the process and comprehensive teaching, this is one of the strengths of the master’s degree.
Kong Shun Ah-Hen mentions that since undergraduate he was very interested in studying food engineering and at that time, he had the opportunity to study sugar technology, “in my degree there were also other mentions, such as mentions of sugar technology cereals, fruit and vegetables, beverages, fermentation and distillery, but I was interested in sugar technology, which has a strong process engineering component”.
This is how he dedicated himself to process engineering in the sugar industry. At that time, opinions against the consumption of refined sugar began to emerge, and other types of natural sweeteners that could replace sucrose were thought of, with fructose being an option. So he decided to start with a study of the extraction of fructose from chicory and its crystallization process, but it finally turned out that inulin, the main polysaccharide in chicory, basically a chain of fructose, is healthier as a prebiotic.
Later, when the researcher arrived in Chile to work at the Universidad Austral de Chile (UACH), after a call for competition, he was working in Santiago before coming to Valdivia, he found a very pleasant space for research in food processing in the Institute of Food Science and Technology (ICYTAL).
That was how he met the murta, “I saw the murta and it looked like a small guava from the tropics,” he mentions. It was there that he began working with her to this day, and currently he is interested in the study of native berries.
“I also work in food processing, especially with the drying process, seeing the effect of processing on the bioactive, functional properties that native Chilean berries have, their anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties, and recently we published an article that demonstrates the anti-inflammatory effect. of the death”.
In addition, he mentions that there is a lot of collaboration with other colleagues inside and outside the UACH who are studying the same thing, and they support each other with the information that each one has to be able to do something with the resources they can get.
He is currently working as a professor and collaborating with colleagues on projects that have to do with fungal properties, under drying treatment, and under different conditions to identify how those properties are being affected. On the other hand, he is also collaborating in a FIC-R project and in another Fondecyt project with the University of Chile for the study of emulsions.
Finally, Dr. Kong Shun Ah-Hen says that he would love to invite young people to come and study Food Engineering with us at UACH, both at the undergraduate and postgraduate level.
