Cosmos Editorial
Scientist
Harpreet Kaur, University of Waikato
PhD title
Aquaphotomics for Low Cost Instrumentation to Investigate Quality of Fruits
Summary
“Good quality fruits are always preferred for the superior taste experience and increasingly for their health benefits. The use of conventional analytical techniques for fruit quality assessment are time consuming and destructive. The non-destructive technique such as Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) along with Chemometrics has been successful in predicting the quality parameters but not well established for on-vine/in-orchard fruit quality measurement. So, in my PhD project the focus has been given on NIRS based handheld sensors and its design. Also, Aquaphotomics concept has been investigated i.e. water absorptions in the short NIR range (<1000 nm) for improving fruit quality predictions.”
The finals of the 2017 Asia-Pacific Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, which challenges PhD students to communicate their research in a snappy three-minute presentation, were held on the 29 September at the University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus. Competitors came from 55 Universities from across Australia, New Zealand and North and South-East Asia.
The presentations were judged by distinguished figures in Australian science including Cosmos editor-in-chief Elizabeth Finkel.
