FST Professor Dr. Bala Balasubramaniam has been appointed to the USDA NAREEE Advisory Board. The NAREEE Advisory Board provides feedback to the Secretary of Agriculture, to USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics (REE) mission area, and to land-grant colleges and universities on food and agricultural research, education, extension and economics priorities and policies. The Advisory Board also provides reports and recommendations to the appropriate agricultural committees of the U.S. Congress.
In addition to his work at Ohio State, He is also a volunteer leader of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) in Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Bala’s research focus has been on food process design, development and validation of various clean food manufacturing technologies that satisfy consumer demand for minimally processed foods with health promoting nutrients preserved. Recent laboratory efforts have focused on various innovative applications of high pressure based technologies in the food industry.
NAREEE Board members are selected and appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture. Each NAREEE Advisory Board member represents a specific category of U.S. agricultural stakeholder as outlined in the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018. These areas include farming or ranching, food production and processing, forestry research, crop, and animal science, Land-grant Institutions, Non-Land-grant colleges, or universities with a historic commitment to research in food and agricultural sciences, food retailing and marketing, rural economic development, and natural resources and consumer interest groups.