Hennie Van Vuuren

Hennie J.J. van Vuuren is currently a Professor in Food Science and holds the Blythe and Violet Eagles Chair in Food Biotechnology. He is the Founding Director of the Wine Research Centre at UBC. He was Associate Dean Research for LFS from 2003-2011. His research focuses on wine yeast genomics and the genetic construction of novel wine yeasts that will benefit the consumer. During the past 15 years he has obtained more than $14 million in research funding. He has trained 24 M.Sc. and 12 Ph.D. students. He has published 89 scientific and holds five patents. He has recently been honoured by the Canada Science and Technology Museum Corporation in Ottawa for major scientific breakthroughs in his laboratory that will prevent the formation of neurotoxins and carcinogens in wine. He served as a member of the Executive Committee and Policy and Finance Committee of the International Society for Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology and was President of the 18th International Conference on Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology.