PULLMAN, Wash. — Jayden Scott is a graduate student at the School of Food Science, focusing on dairy science, specifically correlating microbiome, proteolysis, and flavor during the ripening of Cougar Gold cheese.
Can you tell me about your background both professionally and personally?
I was born in Maryland, but I’ve lived in 11 different states [because my dad was in the Air Force]. But we settled in Colorado, which is what we call home and that’s where my mom’s family is from. I attended high school in Colorado, and then I made my way to Washington State University for my undergrad. I started pre-med and the honors college here in 2019. I thought I wanted to go to med school, but really, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And so, it came down to when I actually had to take the MCAT and apply to med school, and I [realized] I did not want to do this. So, I had enough credits just to graduate with a general biology degree with an emphasis in plant biology and a minor in genetics and cell biology.
I knew I wanted to go to grad school, and I happened upon food science in my hunt of grad programs. [I was able to] rescind my application for graduation and I just decided to stay a student and get a second bachelor’s. One in biology, with an emphasis in plant biology and a minor in genetics and cell biology and then a degree in food science.
Then, I was able to officially decide what I wanted to do, because I really liked food science and this position opened up in Dr. Ünlü’s lab here on campus, whom I had already been in talks with about pursuing grad school.
What do you like to do outside of school?
In Colorado, I had horses, and I rode competitively doing English style riding. I was on a couple of high school equivalents of college teams, and then I was able to come to college here. Washington State University has an intercollegiate-equestrian team. I was on the team for three years, and I was team captain for two years, and then I just rode my own horse here for a year, and then I stopped. And that was during my four years of undergrad.
I’ve also had the opportunity for the last two years to work for the Whitman County Community Action Center Gardens Program. Last year I was their intern, but this year, I was able to take over for Claire MacPherson since she’s on maternity leave right now. I was able to cover for her because I did the internship last year, so I had a bit of a background with their program. I work part time and manage the gardens program within the food bank, so that consists of a whole hydroponic set up within the Community Action Center office that produces about 16 to 20 pounds of produce, mostly lettuce, and that all goes to the food bank.
I also manage a greenhouse and six 20 by 20 plots down at the Koppel Farms Community Garden in Pullman. So, by the end of the year, we usually get about 3,000 pounds of produce that we grow to donate to the food bank. Part of this job is also educational classes and I’ve been able to kind of ramp it up this year with my food science background.
What drove you to pursue your research into dairy and cheeses?
My project is correlating the microbiome of Cougar Gold cheese, along with a couple reference aged cheddars from the industry to the proteolysis, which is the breakdown of proteins caused by the bacteria during the fermentation, and how that affects the sensory characteristics of the cheese as it ages. So, kind of like an observational study within cheddar cheese.
With food science, it’s often explained as “everything from farm to table” and it sounds like you’ve experienced that whole process from farm to table.
It really is the full circle of agriculture… because I come from both sides of it. I’ve done the horses and the cows, I’ve done cattle drives, I’ve worked in dairy and now get to study dairy science. It really is farm to table and everything in between. From crop sciences and soil sciences, to sustainability, to consumer safety, or engineering and processing, all of it somehow fits into this dairy science field, which I feel like is also true for a lot of the food science fields.
With your research being on Cougar Gold, how much do you work with the WSU Creamery within that project?
I’m in conjunction with their research team and more so within their lab. It’s great that we have the creamery and to have the opportunity to make the cheese and for it to be so hands on. We’ll be able to make our batch of cheese, and then we can just kind of walk over and grab the cheese each month and walk back up and do samples. We are lucky enough to have industry partners that are letting us do the same. They’re allowing us to be hands on and making our cheese that’s getting used in this project.
Can you elaborate on the aging process with cheese? Because I’d say a lot of the Cougar Gold magic is how it ages in the can.
That’s actually something that we’re looking at within this project. One of the main defects within aged cheddar cheese is bitterness. The longer you age something, the more bitter it gets, which is kind of what that sharp term comes from. An extra sharp cheese has to be aged for at least a year. Cougar Gold has the adjunct culture which reduces the amount of bitterness that’s being produced in the cheese. That continues to happen as the cheese ages, where normally without that culture or a mechanical way to mitigate the continual reduction of proteins, the cheese during fermentation or ripening is continuously going to get more and more bitter peptides.
So, in terms of Cougar Gold, we’ve had cans that are like 40 and 50 plus years old and they taste the same, if not better than, 1-or-2-year-old aged Cougar Gold… The can and cultures also keep Cougar Gold good for a long time, which is the whole point of fermentation!
Looking ahead, what are you hoping to do after you graduate?
I keep putting off what I call a “big boy job” because I like school. I haven’t truly felt like I have learned my fill, so I keep tacking on school. [I’m hoping to] scratch that itch and move on, because I really do want to work in the cheese industry. There are many, many different opportunities within that. Realistically speaking, I would like to work for a company like Lactalis or Darigold or Tillamook and do some sort of quality assurance or control.
One of the reasons that I kind of got into food science was my mom and my grandma have always had this idea of some sort of farm to table bakery and kitchen. And so, I would really like to do something where we get to work with local agriculture. Where we have some of our own land, we’re pulling in our own milk and meat from down the road and growing our own vegetables..
Do you have a favorite cheese?
I’m definitely a fan of harder cheeses. I like something that tends to be a little bit more funky, with the exception of some mold ripened cheese. But my all-time favorite cheese, and the reason why I took on this project, is an aged white cheddar. And so, Cougar Gold just happens to be one of my favorite cheeses.
Do you have any advice for undergraduate students looking to pursue a graduate degree?
First bit of advice is, if you are interested at all, definitely pursue it. My other piece of advice would be if you want to go to grad school but you’re also tired of school, take a gap year. Grad school will always be there. Most of the people that I have met with in grad school came from industry already. They went a couple years [to work] and they have way more experience than some of us that have just entered grad school straight out of undergrad. You definitely have time to think about it.