Post of the month: February 2019

Post of the month: February 2019

Martha Skinner, first E3S SESRG chair

As some of you may already know, I’ve been Chair of the E3S SESRG since founding it in 2015. I’ve worked hard to lead the group to what it is today, but I’ve loved every minute of it. One of the main aims was to connect early career researchers in sensory and consumer scientists from across Europe. I feel very lucky to have met such a wonderful group of likeminded individuals, and I feel proud with what we’ve managed to achieve in such a short time, by coming together and working towards common goals. You can see a summary of our activities and achievements at the end of this article, but first, it is with sadness to announce that I’m stepping down from my position in leading the group.

Nicolas Seince, the new E3S SESRG chair

However, it gives me great pleasure to announce that the new Chair of the E3S SESRG will be Nicolas Seince from France.

In 2017, Nicolas joined the SESRG as the deputy representative for France. His contributions have included writing a “post of the month” which was posted on the E3S website, and in 2018 he accepted the formal role of ‘social media manager’ of the SESRG group. In 2018 Nicolas attended Eurosense as representative of the group, and assisted in managing the E3S related activities throughout the conference. His most recent contribution was being on the organising committee to host the first ever E3S SESRG webinar, which was a great success.

Nicolas has been working in the Sensory Science field since June 2015. He started in this research area during his Masters at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (France) under the supervision of Marie Repoux (Valrhona) and Professor Philippe Boulinguez, with his research looking into the kinetics of learning of a trained panel. Then, during his summer vacation he has been working at Centre du Rosé (France) with Clémence Salou. This private research center assesses wine with consumer and expert panels. Here, he studied how consumers described Rosé wine.

Today, Nicolas is a Young Sensory Scientist working at Sanofi (French Pharmaceutical Company) in a Research and Development service. He set up a Sensory Evaluation Laboratory and now he is running the Laboratory and its associated activities. He plans to continue in this field in the future.

Nicolas will outline his plans for the future of the group under his leadership, but first I’d like to summarise what the group has achieved so far!

A look into the past
In 2015 Rocio Dorado (from Spain) and I founded the group, which has continued to grow and grow. We now have over 50 members, and a representative from each country associated with E3S. Their profiles can be found here:

http://www.e3sensory.eu/e3s-student-group/

As the group has become more established we have found the need to appoint an official organising committee, which you can read about here:

e3sensory.eu/e3s-student-and-early-stage-researcher-group-committee/

This year we started an exciting new initiative in the form of an online student video competition, which was organised by two PhD students who are studying in the Netherlands, Marlou Lasschuijt and Roelien van Bommel. This was won by Marit Nijman, you can see her video here.

E3S Student video competition

We’ve had a group meeting at either Eurosense or Pangborn every year since 2015, and also additional meetings in Spain in 2017 and Dublin in 2018. However, in September 2018 SESRG had an even stronger presence at Eurosense as we not only held our annual meeting, but we also ran an E3S promotional stand, and collected questionnaire responses on food attitudes. If you haven’t already completed the questionnaire then please do so using the following link:

rebrand.ly/E3Ssurvey

The most recent activities have been the first ever knowledge exchange webinar which was hosted by France in January 2019, led by Adriana Galinanes. This was a great success, with 33 members signing up to join the event. A review of the event will be posted on the E3S website soon, so do keep an eye out for that.

But enough about the past. I’d now like to hand over to Nicolas to share what he has in store for the group under his new leadership……..

What does the future hold?
Nicolas is highly dedicated to keeping the SESRG group moving forward. He plans to keep enhancing the SESRG communication platform so the network can continue to expand. This includes working to improve the actual recruitment process in order to effectively recruit new members. He will introduce a survey to update status of member of the group, and check for volunteers to substitute him as Social Media Manager (drop him an email at e3s-sesrg@e3sensory.eu if you’re interested!). He aims for the group to continue organising events and activities so people can share their experiences (such as Post of the Month, Seminar, annual meetings, Knowledge Exchange Webinar…). As a result, it will provide more networking opportunities for all members of the SESRG. During the next assembly in Milan, he will held a meeting with SESRG members to discuss his vision of the future of the group, so again drop him an email if you’re interested in attending.

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