PULLMAN, Wash. — Dr. Carolyn Ross, Director of the WSU Sensory Science Center, and Professor for the School of Food Science has been promoted to Regents Professor, which can be held by no more than 30 WSU faculty members at any one time. Promotion to Regents Professor requires service to the university for at least seven years and the highest level of professional achievement. Dr. Ross’ 21 years of dedicated service to the School of Food Science, CAHNRS, and WSU, along with her leadership in research and teaching, have placed her among the most distinguished scholars and educators in our field.
How does it feel to be part of the 30 Washington State University faculty to be selected as a Regents Professor?
It’s a great honor. I know that sounds kind of trite, but it really is. It was an honor to be moved up as one of the two from the college and then to be identified as a regents… There are some amazing researchers, instructors, and teachers here at WSU, so being within their ranks is overwhelming but very much an honor.
Would you mind telling me a bit about your background – both professional and/or personal if you’d like to share?
I am originally from Fruitvale, British Columbia which is the interior of the province. When I was born, my dad was doing his master’s degree at WSU… So, I actually summered here when I was a little baby. I have two brothers and a sister so my mom would bring all of us and we’d rent a trailer and hang out here in Pullman!
I completed high school in Canada… and then I went and did my undergraduate degree [in Nutrition] at the University of Manitoba. I took a great food microbiology course in my fourth year and also a really good sensory class, and I realized I really liked that part of it and less about [being] a dietician. I switched to my master’s degree in Food Science and so I moved to University of Guelph.
That was more in the area of food microbiology which I liked but didn’t love and I thought, “I want to do something else for my PhD.” So, I switched to Food Chemistry and Food Analysis for my PhD, and I went to Michigan State University for that. I finished up my PhD, and then I moved down to Georgia Tech, and I was a researcher there at Georgia Tech Research Institute… Then I moved back to Canada, and I was at the University of Waterloo and worked in the department of chemistry. And then I moved to Wyoming, and I was the Director of Biotech for a small research company. I moved back to Canada, and I worked at Brock University and that’s where I got into wine… I was studying ice wine and looking at chemical markers for genuine Canadian ice wine.
Then, I knew they were looking for someone here [at WSU], and I applied and was brought out for an interview and then offered the position and started in August [of 2004]. I met my husband in Pullman and we got married in 2006. And we now have 3 children, with the oldest heading off to university in another year.
Was there anything specific about the sensory science class that you took that made you realize you had the passion for it?
I sort of knew this intuitively, but I hadn’t really seen it in my background in nutrition because in my training, we were more focused on getting nutrition in people. But… food enjoyment is a huge thing and choosing to eat things and not choosing to eat things. If you’re sick, that can remove a lot of that choice, and then you get kind of sad because you’re not able to choose.
So, during my undergrad, I worked at a number of different hospitals in the kitchens. When I was in Winnipeg, I worked in Saint Boniface General Hospital, and I was a menu clerk… I went up the floors to collect [menus], and that’s where they had a palliative care ward, maternity ward, and just general medical ward. I would collect menus from all of these different floors. And so, you’d end up seeing the same people… for a couple weeks, you’d go up and collect their menus from them every day.
There was one patient, who really, really wanted to fill out his menu, but he was basically throwing up the entire time I was talking to him. But he wanted to do it. I think that really resonated with me so much because he’s so sick, but this gave him happiness, this was choice. He wanted to hear all the options, even though I don’t think he ate much.
I think that really, really resonated with me… And so, that’s when I realized that the food itself makes a difference and not just for sustenance or nutritional quality, but just for happiness.
What do you find most rewarding about being a professor?
Educating the students, and that comes in a lot of different ways, a lot of different presentations. So, for the undergraduate students, you can see when something ignites in them… There’re certain lectures or labs where you could see the light come on. And you’re like, oh my gosh, they just saw the Maltese Cross in their starch granule and it’s beautiful. It doesn’t happen every day, but when it does happen it’s really rewarding because you can honestly see it. You can see it on their face when they understand it.
Then for my graduate students, you’re helping train them so that they can be successful. That’s what I want them to be, successful, so that they’re competitive for whatever job they want, wherever they’re looking, so that they can go out and do great things. And the research itself is important but to me, it’s also a lot about the training that the student receives.
Do you have a favorite moment or moments during your time here?
One of my favorite memories is working with the School of Music on a concert that presented aromas alongside the live music that was playing on-stage. I worked with the musician, who both wrote and performed the songs, to understand what feelings and emotions he was trying to evoke with his music. Seeing people sniff their vials of aromas while the song was being performed… you could feel the audience experience shifting. Seeing that kind of engagement was incredible.
Do you have any advice for our undergrad and graduate students?
I think for undergrads… Any experiences you can get, like internships, research opportunities, kitchen work…. Learning from those experiences and getting to know people who can serve as a reference for you… for many employers, you want the student to have good grades, but if they have great references… they can still be very successful. I think taking on as many opportunities as you can, any experiences that you come across, other food science things or non-food science things, going to other lecturers on campus, taking advantage of the fact they’re on a university campus and you can go to anything. Go to those other talks, hear what other people are doing.
For graduates, think about skill set development. Yes, you’ve got your research project, but think about what skill sets you’re developing, because we all have to be nimble. My PhD research focused on lipid oxidation in chicken, which is somewhat specific, but I learned a whole lot of skill sets along the way about analytical methods, and that’s what I could transfer on to future experiences. I could work in car parts, and I could work with saliva, and I could work with all these other things because I had the skill sets. So, that’s what I’d advise for graduate students is to not just focus so narrowly on your research project but think about what skill sets you can develop. And also, statistics; you have to have statistics. You want to try to position yourself as a one person show as best you can, you can generate the data and analyze it too.
It seems like there are times where sensory science can come off as simple, but there are so many different elements involved, like psychology, even?
Yeah, there’s a lot of psychology, there’s a lot of physiology, and then when you get to the data, there’s a lot of stats as well. It’s so multidisciplinary and I think people tend to think of sensory as like, I give you this thing and you tell me if you like it, and that is but one of many questions. The thing is, if you don’t run the study in a controlled manner, you’ll get results that are all over the place. It’s very complicated.
Do you have a fun fact about sensory science you’d like to share? Or anything pertaining to it that you find particularly interesting?
Just the differences among people, I find so interesting. We could be eating the same thing and think that we’re perceiving the same thing, but we’re not, but you can still like it, and I can still like it. We can have some overlapping language, but we would never know that we are not perceiving it differently.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I just appreciate the opportunities WSU has given. They had as many opportunities as I wanted. And the support of the department, and the support of the college to go beyond food science. I love doing things in other departments. I’ve done things in history, the libraries and over in music… There’s just a lot of reach that you can have, and I’ve really, really enjoyed that.