Dr. Kumar Mallikarjunan is an outstanding food engineer, researcher and educator. Over a 30 plus years of his professional career, he has contributed significantly to the field of food science and technology through his research on frying technology, high pressure processing, irradiation, pulsed electric field processing, cold plasma technology, extrusion, microwave and ultrasound assisted extraction of phytochemicals and development of rapid methods to characterize food products using electronic nose and infrared spectroscopy. He helped leading multi-institutional research on aflatoxin mitigation and management in the peanut value chain in sub-Saharan Africa.

His research has led to over 300 publications, including referred articles, conference presentations, books and book chapters. He is actively engaged in IFT, providing leadership at section and national level, including MN-IFT. His professional accomplishments have been recognized by several awards, including the Outstanding Alumni for Research Excellence from Asian Institute of Technology, Kishida International Award and Sukup Global Food Security Awards from ASABE and Bor S. Luh International Award from IFT. He is fellow of both IFT and ASABE, a highest honor bestowed to its members by the respective organizations.