Department of Food Science

Ilke Uysal Ünalan has been a Tenure Track Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Science at Aarhus University since April 2020. IUU obtained a PhD in the field of Food Packaging from the University of Milan focusing on the high gas barrier graphene based (nano)coatings. She then spent 2016-​2017 as a postdoctoral scientist at the School of Packaging, Michigan State University working on polymer processing and characterization, biodegradation of composite films and release behavior from polymer systems to food matrix. In 2017-2018, IUU joined the Laboratory of Food and Soft Materials at ETH Zurich where she focused on the amyloid fibrils-graphene polymeric membranes for the food packaging applications.

Her research is focused on the understanding of the mechanisms underlying `structure-properties-processing` relationships of polymer (nano)composites. She investigates the sustainable strategies to address the key challenges posed by the dispersion state of (nano)structures in polymer melts and (coating) solutions and their interaction at interface in order to achieve the full potential of materials (gas barrier, thermal and mechanical properties) for food packaging applications. These performance boosting strategies have been targeted towards light-weighting, recycling (with the help of movement from multilayer multi-material to mono-material packaging) and reusing of materials with a decrease in food and packaging waste volume. Other areas of interest in her research are biodegradable -polymers and their biodegradation/composting process, mass transfer phenomenon in polymers, and food-packaging interactions influencing quality and safety.