At my current position I contribute to the development of a strategy on a national level to boost innovation in agrofood companies. For this, I work extensively organizing and facilitating multi-stakeholder workshops using e.g. roadmapping techniques. Also, I participate as member of the Boards, Steering and Technical Committees of our flag initiatives. Along with this I monitor the relationships of the institutions behind a portfolio of 172 projects with about 160 companies involved, to help increasing their chances to reach a commercial stage, export, find potential partners for further development, clients, providers and investors in Chile or abroad. This means intensive networking and face to face contact with SME’s, startups and large companies with an innovative profile.

At this position I had the pleasure of leading a team of 26 people from different backgrounds that included agronomists, veterinaries, nutricionists, and bioprocess, chemical and food engineers on the technical side, and also finances, human resources, legal aspects, communications and public relationships on the managing side. As such I was responsible for a pipeline of contract research projects of local, regional and national scope, that reached a value of about €1.600.000 over the course of three years.

At this position I was responsible for generating, executing, evaluating and supervising the annual business plan, while achieving its financial goals. Also, I was in charge of executing and leading the processes to generate new projects, ensuring that they were financially feasible (finding the right funding if necessary) and strategically attractive to build a strong position in Chile. Our projects also had to be attractive to the founding partners. I had to make sure that each project had a clear client, and that it was driven by the needs of that client. Finally, I maintained a network of partners and consultants to generate and execute such projects.

An exergy-based method was developed and used to quantify the sustainability of food processes and entire food chains, including waste streams. Based on the analysis of different food chains, a multi-criteria decision-support system will be developed. Such tools will allow to evaluate alternative processing methods, logistics, reuse of waste streams, or alternative designs of entire food chains with respect to sustainability and other factors such as costs. Ultimately, the project will deliver systematic design rules for new processes and products.

Pilot scale trials, supported by mathematical modeling, of a new technique called Shear Induced Fractionation Technology for the fractionation of suspensions and emulsions (0.1 - 10 µm), generating insights and guidelines on design and operation schemes. The project showed that combining specific process conditions and membrane designs particle migration can be influenced. The migration phenomena itself induces separation and fractionation of particles, making possible to use membranes with pores at least five times larger than de suspension componentes, minimizing fouling.

This project focused on different techniques of surface modification to reduce fouling of microfluidic devices due to adsorption of contaminants, specific reactants, or products at industrially relevant food processing conditions.

During this project a new microencapsulation technique was developed, based on the electrostatic layer-by-layer adsorption of pectin, protein fibrils, and other charged colloidal particles on the surface of a template oil droplet. The release of the capsule's content can be triggered by a change of pH, which allows them to be used in food systems for the release of active compounds in the small intestine. A microfluidic reactor for continuous production of these microcapsules was designed and tested.

Different projects related with the application of microfiltration and reverse osmosis in the treatment of liquid waste streams from the Food Industry.