Tormod Næs (born February 11, 1954) is a Norwegian statistician working in
chemometrics
Chemometrics is the science of extracting information from chemical systems by data-driven means. Chemometrics is inherently interdisciplinary, using methods frequently employed in core data-analytic disciplines such as multivariate statistics, ap ...
and
sensometrics. He studies
multivariate statistical analysis,
spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Spectro ...
,
food science
Food science (or bromatology) 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 ...
, and sensory science. His impact on chemometrics is exemplified by the over 8,000 citations to his most well-known book, ''Multivariate Calibration'' (with Harald Martens), and the awards in chemometrics that he has received.
Education
Tormod Næs obtained both his master's degree (1978) and PhD (1984) in statistics from
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...
.
Career
For most of his career Næs has worked at
Nofima
The Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (also known as Nofima), is a food science research institute in Norway. The head office is located in Tromsø, with research activities in Bergen, Stavanger, Sunndalsøra, Tromsø ...
(Norwegian Food Research institute) at
Ã…s, achieving the title of Senior Scientist.
He has been a professor at the University of Oslo, the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University.
...
, and
Stellenbosch University
Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...
.
Næs has had four long research and guest professor periods abroad; at
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
(Seattle),
University of Delaware
The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...
,
University of Genova
The University of Genoa () is a Public university, public research university. It is one of the largest universities in Italy and it is located in the city of Genoa, on the Italian Riviera in the Liguria region of northwestern Italy. The original ...
and
University of Firenze.
Næs was member of The Board of Directors, Matforsk (now Nofima) for four years, chairman of the ''8th Sensometrics Conference'': ''Imagine the Senses'', held August 2006 in
Ås, chairman of the organising committee for the ''‘PLS’07: 5th International Symposium on PLS and Related Methods'' (September 2007) and chairman of the ''16th Scandinavian Symposium on Chemometrics'' (''SSC16''): ''Chemometrics in Action'' (June 2019).
During his time at Nofima, Næs has been project and task leader of a number of research projects financed by
Research Council of Norway
The Research Council (also the Research Council of Norway; ) is a Norwegian government agency that funds research and innovation projects. On behalf of the Government, the Research Council invests NOK 11,7 billion (2022) annually.
The Research ...
and EU (Marie Curie). Among these was "ConsumerCheck," a four-year (2009–2012) international project which involved researchers working in collaboration with Nofima from their home bases in South Africa, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
[Consumercheck website]
Næs headed the project "RapidCheck" at Nofima. This was a project which studied rapid method for food producers to test their products and to understand better why consumers eat what they eat. Næs served as the project leader for "Panelcheck" for eight months (September 1, 2007–May 5, 2007). PanelCheck is a well established open source software package of multiple statistical and graphical tools used within the field of sensometrics for performance analysis of trained sensory panels. It was developed by researchers at MATFORSK (Norwegian Food Research Institute), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the University of Copenhagen.
Næs has been European editor of ''Journal of Chemometrics'' (2003–2005)Technometrics
''Technometrics'' is a journal of statistics for the physical, chemical, and engineering sciences, published quarterly since 1959 by the American Society for Quality
The American Society for Quality (ASQ), formerly the American Society fo ...
'' (2007–2008). He is currently (as of 2023) on the editorial board of '' Food Quality and Preference'', ''Journal of Chemometrics'' and ''Italian Journal of Applied Statistics'' (''Statistica Applicata'').
Næs has supervised 24 PhD students to their final degree.
Influence and recognition
Tormod Næs has a large production of scientific papers and books and has an h-index (as of March 2023) equal to 48 in Web of Science and equal to 66 in Google Scholar. He is particularly known to researchers in chemometrics for his ability to combine multivariate statistics with applied areas in spectroscopy and sensory science, in this way building bridges between these areas.food quality
Food quality is a concept often based on the organoleptic characteristics (e.g., taste, aroma, appearance) and nutritional value of food. Producers reducing potential pathogens and other hazards through food safety practices is another important f ...
, and Næs spoke about the use of principal component analysis
Principal component analysis (PCA) is a linear dimensionality reduction technique with applications in exploratory data analysis, visualization and data preprocessing.
The data is linearly transformed onto a new coordinate system such that th ...
, least squares regression
Linear least squares (LLS) is the least squares approximation of linear functions to data.
It is a set of formulations for solving statistical problems involved in linear regression, including variants for Ordinary least squares, ordinary (unweig ...
, and Euclidean distance
In mathematics, the Euclidean distance between two points in Euclidean space is the length of the line segment between them. It can be calculated from the Cartesian coordinates of the points using the Pythagorean theorem, and therefore is o ...
or Mahalanobis distance
The Mahalanobis distance is a distance measure, measure of the distance between a point P and a probability distribution D, introduced by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. The mathematical details of Mahalanobis distance ...
in chemometrics.
Honors and awards
*1997: Tomas Hirschfeld award in NIR analysisNorwegian Academy of Technological Sciences
The Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences (, NTVA) is a learned society based in Trondheim, Norway.
Founded in 1955, the academy has about 500 members. It is a member of the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technologica ...
he 16th Herman Wold medal in Gold
from the Chemometrics Division of the Swedish Chemical Society
Svenska Kemisamfundet
References
External links
Nofima
Chemometricians
Norwegian statisticians
University of Oslo alumni
1954 births
Living people
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