Building Tomorrow's Wheat Industry Leaders
We welcome accomplished wheat-focused science professionals from key international markets to join our team for immersive experiences lasting up to 12 months, where they gain deep technical knowledge about U.S. wheat while contributing their own expertise to advance the industry.
Program Impact and Reach
Since our program’s inception in 2001, we’ve had the privilege of hosting more than 30 visiting scholars from nine countries, creating a global network of wheat expertise that spans continents. Our scholars have come from major wheat markets including Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, China, the Philippines, and South Korea, bringing diverse perspectives that enrich our research and strengthen international relationships.
These technical exchanges do more than transfer knowledge—they build lasting professional networks with current and emerging technical leaders while creating foundations for better recognition of U.S. wheat’s comparative advantages in existing and emerging product markets.
Read About Some of Our Recent Visiting Scholars
Ms. Shikhadri Mahanta is a PhD student in the department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University. Her research is focused on developing engineering techniques to increase the use of wheat flour, understanding the effects of a novel technology called Atmospheric Cold Plasma on soft wheat and hard wheat flours, plus end products such as cakes and breads.
Ms. Yu-Ching Huang visited from the China Grains Products Research and Development Institute (CGPRDI), a leading baking training and research center in Taiwan, with her research focused on whole wheat steamed bread, including comparisons across different U.S. wheat classes and bran particle sizes.
Ms. Ponsettia Larracas, a New Product Flour Development Specialist from Manila Philippines, worked on PNW Wheat Crop Quality and learned processes involved with evaluating quality and utilization of PNW wheat to educate and facilitate dialogue among leaders and research institutions among the wheat industry.
Ms. Min XU, a PhD student at the College of Tea and Food Science & Technology at Anhui Agricultural University, focused her research project on the use of green tea extract to improve Asian noodle antioxidant and end product quality.
Dr. Wenyin (Sofia) Zheng, an Associate Professor at Anhui Agricultural University in Hefei, China, evaluated soft white whole wheat flour in baked products and wine grape pomace-fortified bread.
Mr. Yosep Kim, a Researcher at Daehan Flour Mill in Incheon, South Korea, studied the relationship between protein and sponge cake quality and identified optimal flour blends for sponge cakes.
Mr. Jungang Wang, a PhD student at Washington State University, evaluated optimization of the GlutoPeak method for whole wheat flour and supported the crop quality surveys.