Dr. Kasiviswanathan (Muthu) Muthukumarappan is a Maynard A. Klingbeil Endowed Department Head and Distinguished Professor in the agricultural and biosystems engineering department at South Dakota State University.
He has led several research projects and advised more than 40 graduate students in academic and research activities. His work focuses on food and bioprocessing standards development, resulting in over 225 peer-reviewed publications and 350 presentations.
He has revised three ASABE standards, served on various committees, and held leadership roles within the National Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), MN-IFT section, IFT-Great Plains subsection and American society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE).
Dr. Muthukumarappan has received numerous awards for his contributions to research and education in food and bioprocess engineering at both national and international levels.
History of the Award
The Harold Macy Food Science and Technology Award was established by the MN Section of the Institute of Food Technologists in 1981. In the words of the bylaw adopted to formally establish the Award, its purpose “shall be to advance the profession and practice of food technology and to honor Dean Emeritus Harold Macy by the selection each year of an outstanding example of food technology transfer or cooperation between scientists or technologists in any two of the following settings by the preparation of appropriate descriptive material describing the accomplishments involved, and inviting of the individual awardee or awardees to address the annual Award meeting of the Section.”
Harold Macy, emeritus charter professional member of IFT and former dean of the Institute of Agriculture at the University of Minnesota, died in 1986 at the age of 91. Dean Harold Macy, “Jo” to those who knew him, had a long and illustrious career in the food industry. His first and most extensive association focused on interests in dairy science, and his professional activity in dairy husbandry, processing and bacteriology, and later in food technology, spanned over 50 years. Jo Macy was involved in formulations and writing of some of the first public health regulations for milk and other dairy products, to assure their safety and wholesomeness.
Among his most notable achievements in technology transfer was the establishment in 1936 of the Dairy Quality Control Institute (DQCI). For many years, DQCI oversaw on a cooperative basis, the quality of milk marketed in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, and included an analytical laboratory that was highly respected on a national basis. He was also involved in the original founding of the American Dairy Association and the Dairy Council, which was in Macy’s words “one of the dairy industry’s most precious accomplishments.”
Macy’s academic career began in 1919 as an assistant professor of dairy bacteriology at the University of Minnesota. In the succeeding 44 years, he moved up through the ranks and completed his campus tenure as dean of what was then the Institute of Agriculture, Forestry, and Home Economics. It is thus entirely fitting that a Minnesota IFT Section award emphasizing technology transfer among academia, government, and private industry should honor the name of Harold Macy.