Avi Shpigelman heads the Laboratory for Novel Food and Bioprocessing and is an assistant professor in the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. His lab integrates engineering, chemistry, biology, and microbiology to explore innovative food processing technologies and their effects on food ingredients and health.
Prof. Shpigelman’s research focuses on the interplay between food processing, the structure of food components, and their behavior during shelf life and at the end of their bioactivity in our body. He is guided by the principle that the design of food processing should carefully balance aspects that are important to consumers’ health and well-being. Currently, he is experimenting with non-thermal food technologies such as high-pressure processing, which uses cold processing techniques rather than conventional heat to eliminate microorganisms and optimize nutrition.
Prof. Shpigelman completed all his degrees at the Technion and conducted postdoctoral research at KU Leuven in Belgium, before joining the Technion in 2014. He also served in the Israel Defense Forces Navy Laboratory. Prof. Shpigelman is a member-at-large of the Non-thermal Processing Division (NPD) of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), and was recognized as an outstanding volunteer of NPD in 2020. He also is involved in a pilot project for the new food center at the Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
