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Contact

• workRoom B17 North Lab
  Sutton Bonington Campus
  Sutton Bonington
  Leicestershire
  LE12 5RD
  UK
• R.Ford@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

Dr. Rebecca Ford (Becki) leads the Sensory and Consumer Science research group, is Deputy Head for the Division of Food, Nutrition and Dietetics within the School of Biosciences and sits on the leadership team for the Future Food Beacon at the º£½ÇºÚÁÏ. She is also co-leading the Connect Nottingham initiative - a pioneering community research hub at the newly acquired Castle Meadow Campus, along with Prof. Ellen Townsend. Connect Nottingham puts the community at the centre of what we do at the University.

Becki has a background in industry with experience in Food Manufacturing, New Product Development, Consumer Insights, Global Sensory Panel Training and Consultancy within food, brewing, beverage and consumer goods sectors. She has a doctorate in Multi-Sensory Perception and continues to be fueled by a fascination of the complexity of our sensory systems and the subsequent impact on food choice and consumer behavior. Becki's research is multi-disciplinary, collaborating with scientists in Nutrition, Engineering, Computer Science, Brewing and Flavour Chemistry to name a few. Externally, Becki and the sensory team collaborate with the University of Adelaide (Australia), University of Florence (Italy) and Brock University (Canada). She is vice-chair of the European Sensory Science Society (E3S) and is a member of the E3S taste sensitivity working group. She is also a member of the Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) and the IFST's Sensory Science Group.

The Sensory and Consumer research group's interests include investigating;

• multimodal flavour perception,
• individual variation in sensory perception,
• the use of digital technologies to understand consumer behavior,
• sustainable consumer behavior.

The research group have a passion for public engagement and knowledge exchange with our ethos of 'learning through engaging' delivering interactive workshops at local, national and global events. We have a number of highly successful Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP's) to drive innovation within local companies.

Teaching Summary

Along with colleague Qian Yang, Becki is module convenor for:

• Sensory Evaluation and Sensory Techniques.
• Consumer Science.

Becki teaches sensory content for Food Science programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She contributes to modules at each stage of undergraduate study, including exciting our first year students through understanding the importance of our sensory system for the enjoyment of food, through to teaching our second year students about sensory evaluation methods for new product development and quality control. Teaching in the final year is focused on exploring consumer science. At postgraduate level she contributes to teaching on Food Production Management and Brewing Science MSc courses. Her pedagogy is 'learning through engaging' and she focuses on maximizing practicals. She is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Authority.

Research Summary

Current research investigates:

• Individual variation in sensory perception with taste phenotype, genotype and thermally-induced taste.
• Research 'in the wild' - Investigating the importance of realistic contexts on consumer response; Exploring the use of immersive technologies to create realistic consumer contexts.
• Fundamental understanding of sensory perception and methodologies: Investigating the nutritional and sensory perception of rare sugars; Improving the sensory quality of low alcohol beer; predictive modeling; exploring the use of temporal methods to increase product discrimination.
• Consumer driven approaches to food sustainability.

Selected Publications

• HORT, J, FORD, R, ELDEGHAIDY, S and FRANCIS, S.T, 2016. Human Brain Mapping.
• CLARK, R, LINFORTH, R, BEALIN-KELLY, F and HORT, J, 2011. Journal of the Institute of Brewing.. 117(1), 74-81
• CLARK, R, HEWSON, L, BEALIN-KELLY, F and HORT, J, 2011. Chemosensory Perception. 4, 42-54

• View all publications

Past Research

Past research includes:

• Multi-modal flavour perception: the effect of bitterness, sweetness, alcohol content and carbonation level on flavour perception in beer
• Instrumental analysis of flavour in-vitro and in-vivo to investigate physico-chemical matrix interactions,
• Functional magnetic resonance brain imaging (fMRI) to explore cortical response to flavour,
• Taste representation in the primary gustatory cortex using high resolution functional magnetic resonance brain imaging (fMRI) at ultra-high field strength (7T), to map fine gustotopic taste representations in the brain,
• Individual variation in sensory perception - investigating sensory and cortical differences (using fMRI) with PROP and thermal taste phenotype (Thermal Taster Status).
• Understanding the mouthfeel of black tea

• DIETZ, CHRISTINA, COOK, DAVID, WILSON, COLIN, MARRIOTT, RAY and FORD, REBECCA, 2020. Journal of the Institute of Brewing. 126(3), 263– 279
• MARIT NIJMAN, SUE JAMES, FRIEDA DEHRMANN, KATHERINE SMART and REBECCA FORD, 2019. Food Quality and Preference. 74, 59-71
• YANG, Q, KRAFT, M, SHEN, Y, MACFIE, H and FORD, R, 2019. Food Quality and Preference.
• KASPRZAK, MIROSLAW, WILDE, PETER, HILL, SANDRA E., HARDING, STEPHEN E., FORD, REBECCA and WOLF, BETTINA, 2019. Non-chemically modified waxy rice starch stabilised wow emulsions for salt reduction FOOD & FUNCTION. 10(7), 4242-4255
• ELDEGHAIDY, S, THOMAS, D, SKINNER, M, FORD, R, GIESBRECHT, T, THOMAS, A, HORT, J and FRANCIS, S, 2018. Physiology & Behavior. 184, 226–234
• SKINNER, M, ELDEGHAIDY, S, FORD, R, GIESBRECHT, T, THOMAS, A, FRANCIS, S and HORT, J, 2018. Physiology & Behavior. 188, 67-78
• IMOGEN RAMSEY, CAROLYN ROSS, REBECCA FORD, IAN D FISK, QIAN YANG, JAVIER GOMEZ-LOPEZ and JOANNE HORT, 2018. Food Quality and Preference. 68, 292-303
• SKINNER M, LIM M, TARREGA A, FORD R, LINFORTH R, THOMAS A and HORT J, 2017. International Journal of Food Science and Technology. 52, 1299-1306
• FORD, R A, 2017. Deciding Which Test to Use in Discrimination Testing. In: LAUREN ROGERS, ed., Discrimination Testing in Sensory Science: A Practical Handbook Woodhead publishing.
• HORT, J, FORD, R, ELDEGHAIDY, S and FRANCIS, S.T, 2016. Human Brain Mapping.
• REBECCA FORD, 2016. Super-taster, thermal taster or sweet-liker: Where are we with individual variation in perception? In: Eurosense 2016: Seventh European Conference on Sensory and Consumer Research.
• CLARK, R, LINFORTH, R, BEALIN-KELLY, F and HORT, J, 2011. Journal of the Institute of Brewing.. 117(1), 74-81
• CLARK, R, HEWSON, L, BEALIN-KELLY, F and HORT, J, 2011. Chemosensory Perception. 4, 42-54
• CLARK, R, FRANCIS, S.T, BEALIN-KELLY, F and HORT, J, 2011. The cortical response to carbonation and its interaction with taste perception In: 9th Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium.
• CLARK, R, BEALIN-KELLY, F, HEWSON, L and HORT, J, 2010. Bubbles in Beer: the impact of carbonation on flavour perception In: The 4th European Conference on Sensory and Consumer Research – A Sense of Quality.