Lucy Yu was recognized for her contributions to food nutrition, healthfulness and safety.
Lucy Yu (left) is presented with the American Chemical Society's Award for the Advancement of Application of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Liangli (Lucy) Yu, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Maryland received the American Chemical Society’s 2023 Award for the Advancement of Application of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The award was established in 1972 to recognize outstanding contributions to pure and applied agricultural and food chemistry, and the recipient is chosen annually from a global pool of agricultural and food chemists. Yu is the second female chemist to receive the honor, which acknowledges her important research in three areas: nutraceuticals and functional foods, chemical aspects of food safety, and analytical technologies to ensure food integrity.
“This award is a great honor to me,” Yu said. “It is a recognition of my career scholarly accomplishments by the experts in the field. Many thanks to all my students, post-doc fellows, visiting scientists, collaborators, supporting staff members, funding agencies and industries, ACS-AGFD and UMD/AGNR/NFSC. Without these supports, this award would be impossible for me.’
Yu is internationally known for her pioneering research, which has improved the scientific understanding of functional components in food for more than 25 years. Her work has led to enhancements in the nutritional and health attributes of important U.S. agricultural crops and increased utilization of foods previously considered waste through value-added production. Her work has also led to improvements in the safety and integrity of agricultural and food systems.
Among Yu’s groundbreaking work is the development of wheat-based foods rich in nutraceutical components for improving human health. From identifying the free radical scavenging qualities in wheat to showing how optimized baking conditions increase antioxidant availability in wheat foods, Yu’s research serves as a scientific foundation for all research and development into whole-wheat health foods and can be applied also to whole-grain food research, production and consumption for human health.
In addition, her group reported for the first time that seed flours from oil extraction processes are rich in healthful components including natural antioxidants and anti-inflammatory components. This work led to the value-added utilization of the seed flours as nutraceutical ingredients in foods and dietary supplements while reducing the environmental hazardous wastes.
In food safety, Yu’s studies have provided a foundation for understanding how toxins are introduced during processing of edible oils, breads and infant formula, and her group has developed several natural antioxidant shelf-life enhancers for improving food safety, quality and stability. Her group also played a leading role in developing a novel technique to identify unknown contaminants in adulterated foods.
As a leader in her field, Yu has mentored 17 Ph.D. and 12 MS students, 1 junior faculty, 24 visiting professors/scholars/Ph.D. students and 12 undergraduate students. She has authored 297 peer reviewed journal articles, 18 book chapters, edited 5 books, translated 1 book, holds 3 patents, 9 patent applications, 6 Invention disclosures and delivered more than100 invited or peer reviewed presentations. Dr. Yu is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Division of Agriculture Food and Chemistry (AGFD) and the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). Among her many other awards are the 2008 ACS-AGFD Young Scientist Research Award and the 2020 Stephen S. Chang Award for Lipid or Flavor Science from IFT.
The award is sponsored by International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc., and was presented to Yu on August 15, at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco. In her acceptance speech, Yu emphasized that she is far from retirement and will continue to contribute agricultural and food chemistry as a researcher and through her services to UMD and professional associations and journal editorships.
