Professor Ioanna Mandala is professor in Food Engineering- Physical Properties of Foods, Head of Food Process Engineering Lab and Head of the Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition. She is a Chemical Engineer being graduated from National Technical University of Athens and she holds a Ph.D. performed in Food Engineering Lab at Agricultural University of Athens, focused on trheological properties and microstructure of starch/hydrocolloids systems. She has collaborated with several research groups abroad, in Germany (Karlsruhe), France (ENSIA-Paris), and New Jersey, USA (Rutgers University). Her research has achieved nearly 3600 citations (6/2024). Τhe average impact per publication corresponds to h-index: 6.2 and to a total h-factor:37 (Scopus search I* Mandala or J* Mandala). She participated in several national or international research projects as member of the research team, scientific supervisor, or project coordinator.
Her research is focused on the measurement of physical properties in terms of food composition and processing. Regarding physical properties the main attributes of her interst are the texture, the rheological properties, the color, the granulometry, the macto/micro structure and the sensory attributes under processing. In recent years, the dehydration of plant origin products and the size reduction processes are core activities.
Since 2023 she has been member of the scientific committee of the Journal of Food Science (JFS) and since 2024 is an Associate Editor (AE) in the same journal.

Nikolaos G. Stoforos, a Chemical Engineer (National Technical University of Athens, 1978), is Professor in Food Engineering - Food Preservation at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, of Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), Greece (2016-present). He holds a Ph.D. in Engineering (1988) and a Master of Science in Food Science (1984) from the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and the Department of Food Science and Technology at University of California, Davis, USA, respectively. He worked as Research Engineer at the National Food Processors Association, Western Research Laboratory, Process Technologies Division, Dublin, CA, USA, (1989 – 1992), the Department of Food and Microbial Technology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium, (1994 – 1995) and the Department of Chemical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, (1996 – 2000). From 2000 till 2009 he served as an Assistant Professor in Food Process Engineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and from 2009 to 2015 as Associate Professor at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at AUA His research interests refer to safety and quality evaluation of foods with main focus on mathematical/kinetic modeling of safety and quality attribute changes during food processing or storage. His research focuses on food processing and preservation with emphasis on thermal processing (thermal process calculation methodologies, aseptic processing, time-temperature integrators), high pressure processing, predictive microbiology, and kinetic modeling at dynamic temperature conditions. He has published 45 research papers in peer reviewed journals, 9 book chapters, 19 chapters in international and 29 in national conference proceedings and 42 presentations in international meetings. He is the author of one book, has been co-editor of 5 books and 2 special issue journals and has over 1200 citations (h index=16).