FRANCE – The International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) today released a press statement to unveil Judith Evans, a professor at London South Bank University, as the new president of IIR Commission C2 on food science and engineering. Evans has thus been appointed to the post previously held by Dr Milan Houska, the Czech scientist from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague who served as Evan’s predecessor as president of the C2 commission.

The IIR commission C2 is composed of 39 experts from 20 IIR member countries across the globe and is key in hosting the IIR Sustainability and the Cold Chain Conference (ICCC), held internationally since 2010, with the next conference in the series set to be held in Beijing, China, in 2018. The Commission C2 is also particularly involved and invested in the EU research project SuperSmart as well as in the IIR Working Group on Cold Chain in Warm Climates. The IIR Commission C2’s mission statement is defined as ‘paving the way on food science and engineering’.

Currently a professor at London South Bank University (UK) and a Director of RD&T (Refrigeration Developments and Testing), Judith Evans is best known for her work on food refrigeration operations throughout the food cold chain from harvest/slaughter to the consumer. Evans, who is a renowned expert in her field in both academic and scientific spheres, has held many other professional positions including having previously worked at the University of Bristol, AFRC Institute of Food Research and the Meat Research Institute.

Throughout her long career, Evans has worked on a number of key topics for the industry such as the frozen storage of meat, consumer handling of food and studies to improve the performance of domestic and commercial refrigerators, energy labelling, instrumentation performance, decontamination of food, cook-chill systems, novel refrigeration systems, optimising refrigeration systems and improving performance and temperature control in chilled and frozen storage rooms.

In more recent times, her current work has been focused on reducing energy use and emissions from the food cold chain, energy storage systems, the use of novel refrigeration systems and optimising food refrigeration processes.

The IIR statement also described Judith Evans as being an active and influential figure in her domain, disclosing that she is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Refrigeration (IOR) as well as serving as the UK delegate to the International Institute of Refrigeration. Indeed, the appointment of Evans to her new post as president of the C2 commission is seen as the culmination of the longstanding collaboration between the IOR and the IIR.

The IIR statement proudly acknowledged that the UK Institute of Refrigeration (IOR) and the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) had forged a strong partnership, with the support of Judith Evans, based on common ideas and objectives in relation to refrigeration. The press release also reaffirmed the IIR’s belief that collaboration had been key to both structures in creating platforms at an international level where experts can converge and exchange in specialised domains.

One of Evan’s first tasks this year as president of the commission will be to help the IOR organise the 12^th IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Refrigerants (GL2016) which is due to take place on August 21-24, 2016 in Edinburgh.