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Deborah Roberts, Ph.D. Food and Flavor Science Consulting LLC   Education Work experience Expertise Professional activities and affiliations Contact details

Dr. Deborah Roberts is a consulting food and flavor scientist, with over 10 years of experience in industry and university settings. She specializes in improving the flavor quality of food products for food, ingredient, or flavor companies. After her Ph.D. from Cornell University, she worked as a flavor expert at the Nestle Research Center in Switzerland. During these years, she collaborated with numerous Nestle R&D centers, serving as the flavor specialist in their product development projects. Dr. Roberts is internationally known within the flavor science community with a total of 30 scientific publications, 26 presentations at scientific conferences, and has 2 edited books, "Flavor Release" and "Flavor Perception".

Deborah Roberts graduated from Purdue University with a B.S. in Honors Food Science in May 1991 where she received the honor of outstanding senior in the School of Agriculture.

With a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship, she continued graduate work in flavor chemistry at Cornell University with Professor Terry Acree. The subject of her M.S. thesis (May 1993) was the "Isolation and Identification of Flavor Precursors in Apples". For this thesis, she received an American Chemical Society first place award for graduate research from the division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The subject of her Ph.D. dissertation (November 1995) was "Flavor Release Analysis using a Retronasal Aroma Simulator". She was author of a funded competitive grant: USDA National Research Initiatives.

For 7 years, Dr. Deborah Roberts worked at the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, as a research flavor chemist and project leader. One of her personal accomplishments during this time was to become fluent in french. At Nestlé, she functioned as a flavor expert on many different food products. She performed applied research in flavor release, and became known as a leader in this field.

Since founding a consulting business in 2003, Dr. Deborah Roberts has consulted for several major food and flavor companies. Her areas of consulting expertise are as follows.

Flavor Project Leadership

• Resolve flavor problems in food products such as flavor loss and off-flavors.
• Identify appropriate flavorings for use and their most effective methods of application.
• Look at a company's flavor strategy and find ways to improve product flavor.

Flavor Analysis

• Increase the understanding of compounds contributing to food's flavor in order to better control the flavor results.
• Specialist of gas chromatography olfactometry, headspace analysis, and GC-MS.

Networking

• Initiate collaborations and alliances in food and flavor science.
• Provide comprehensive reviews on key fields.
• Liaise with flavor companies.
• Organize and present flavor-related workshops, seminars, and training.

Publication Highlights

• Has a total of 30 scientific publications
• Edited a book called Flavor Release in 2000, that was developed from a symposium she organized at the annual American Chemical Society meeting.
• Edited "Flavour Perception", 2004, which was also based on an organized symposium at a national American Chemical Society meeting.

International Recognition

• Has been an invited or contributed speaker at 26 international flavor conferences
• Is an active Member in the ACS division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, where she has served as flavor chemistry chairperson and executive committee Member
• Course Lecturer in Flavor Workshops (ACS, UMSL)
• Actively participated in European COST Actions
• Editorial Advisory Board, Flavour and Fragrance Journal