Lilia Ahrné

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala Sweden

Lilia Ahrné is Professor in Food Science and Technology at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. From 2016-2026 she was Professor in Dairy Process Technology at University of Copenhagen and led the Dairy and Processing Research Group at Department of Food Science.  She is chair of the scientific committee of IUFOST (International Union of Food Science and technology). She holds a PhD in food engineering from the Catholic University of Portugal with part of the PhD carried out at University of California Davis. In 1994, she moved to Sweden with an EU Postdoc fellowship hosted by Tetra Pak Processing Systems in collaboration with Lund University. For 10 years, she was the director of Process and Technology Development department at SIK- The Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, and adjunct Professor in Food Technology at Chalmers University of Technology. She has been president of EFFoST (European Federation of Food Science and Technology) and led the Food Science Sweden, a collaborative platform financed by the major Swedish food research actors. She has been member of the National Committee Food Sciences of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA) and member of the Expert Group on FOOD 2030 for the European Commission R&I Directorate F.  Her research interests are to understand the effect of processing on physical, chemical and structural characteristics of foods, and use this knowledge to develop new processes and products. Processes under study include both traditional and novel technologies. The research activities are focused on two main platforms: (i) Structuring technologies and (ii) separation technologies to deliver gentle processes for production of sustainable foods.