Zoltan I. Kertesz (September 2, 1903 – August 1968) was a Hungarian-born, American

food scientist Food science is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the development ...

who was involved in the early development of food microbiology and

food chemistry Food chemistry is the study of chemical processes and interactions of all biological and non-biological components of foods. The biological substances include such items as meat, poultry, lettuce, beer, milk as examples. It is similar to biochemist ...

. He was also an active member of the

Institute of Food Technologists The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) is an international, non-profit scientific society of professionals engaged in food science, food technology, and related areas in academia, government and industry. It has more than 17,000 members from ...

(IFT).

Career

Kertesz was born in Hungary, but emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

where he went to work for the

New York State Agricultural Experiment Station The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) at Geneva, Ontario County, New York State, is an agricultural experiment station operated by the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. In August 2 ...

(NYSAES), part of

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. It was there he would work on food microbiology and food chemistry. This included improving the grading and quality of canned

pea The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...

s, which was featured in a 1935 ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'
magazine article

IFT involvement

An active member of IFT, Kertesz would serve as Editor-In-Chief of '' Food Technology'' magazine from July 1950 to July 1952 and of '' Food Research'' after IFT purchased the scientific journal from Garand Press in 1951. He would receive the IFT International Award in 1967.

Other professional involvement

Kertesz was also a member of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

Selected articles

* * * *

References

*Mermelstein, N.H. and F.R. Katz. "Advancing Food Science and Technology for Fifty Years." ''Food Technology.'' January 1997: pp. 8–11.

External links

List of IFT past award winners
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kertesz, Zoltan I. 20th-century American chemists American food scientists Cornell University faculty Hungarian food scientists 1903 births 1968 deaths Hungarian emigrants to the United States