Remko Boom was born in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in 1965. He received his MSc degree (cum laude; highest honours) at the University of Twente, in 1988. In 1992 he obtained his PhD degree (cum laude; highest honours) at the same institute. In 1993 he received the Royal Dutch Shell Study Tour Award for his PhD work. From 1992 to 1998 he worked for Unilever Research. In 1998, he was appointed as full professor of Food Process Engineering at Wageningen University. From 2011 to 2015 he was scientific director of the Graduate School / Programme VLAG (food technology, nutrition, molecular sciences and agro-biotechnology). He holds visiting professorships at Tsukuba University in Japan since 2015, and at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore since 2018.
His research interests revolve around the exploration of new principles to more sustainably produce healthier foods: new ways to isolate ingredients, new ways to structure foods, and thermodynamic assessment of complex production systems. His research group includes two other full professors, 6 assistant / associate professors, 5 technicians, and currently around 60 PhD students and postdocs (excluding BSc and MSc students). In the latest assessment by an international expert panel, his group was found to be excellent in all aspects (scientific quality, societal relevance and viability), and was characterised as globally leading in its fields.
He is member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT), is member of the leadership team of the European Technology Platform Food for Life, is scientific director of the Sustainable Food Initiative, and participates in the top institutes on process technology (ISPT), and on food and nutrition (Top Institute Food and Nutrition, TIFN). He has currently (co-)published more than 400 peer-reviewed publications (Scopus), and has successfully graduated 70 PhD students to date.
