What does it mean to be a
Riddet Institute PhD Student?
- Vitor Geniselli da Silva was awarded the Postgraduate Students Award for his poster on identifying foods that nourish the infant gut microbiota through a combined in silico and in vitro approach at Foodomics 2024.
- Simone Frame received the People's Choice Award for her poster on "Aotearoa bananas for feeding the infant gut microbiota" at Foodomics 2024.
- Sheba Culas won the People's Choice Award at Massey University's 3MT competition in 2024.
- Isurie Akarawita came second in the University of Auckland's 3MT competition in 2024.
- Hao Cui came third in the Elsevier Poster Competition at the 17th International Hydrocolloids Conference in 2024.
- Akashdeep Beniwal received the Wiley Top Downloaded Article (in the first 12 months) for his paper "Meat analogues: Protein restructuring during thermomechanical processing" in 2023.
- Aylin Şen won Best Oral Presentation at the DOF 10th International Symposium in 2023.
- Patricia Soh was the oral presentation runner up at the Australia and New Zealand Nutrition Society Conference in 2023.
- Qayyum Shehzad was the winner of Zero Hunger theme, 4th Commonwealth Chemistery poster presentation in 2023.
Top: Hao Cui. Bottom row from left: Vitor Geniselli Da Silva, Aylin Şen.
Riddet Institute Student
Communicator Award Winners
Every year the Riddet Institute holds a Student colloquium and the best presenter is selected for this award.
2025 Di Lu
2024 Summer Rangimaarie Wright
2023 Jacqui Tonkie
2022 Aylin Şen
2021 Laura Payling
2020 No winner
2019 Alex Kanon
2018 Hoang Du Le
2017 Nick Smith
2016 Sewuese Okubanjo
2015 Shikha Pundir
2014 Nadia Berger
2012 Niranchan Paskaranavadivel
2011 Tim Angeli
2010 Lisa Te Morenga
2009 Thilo Berg
Conference Presentations
We provide a variety of training opportunities and funding to enable students to present their work at overseas conferences and other forums, or to join with other specialists in their field around the world. Some recent presentations include:
Vitor Geniselli Da Silva gave an oral presentation at the NuGo Week 2025 conference in Dublin, Ireland. His presentation was titled "To model or not to model? Lessons on using an in silico-in vitro approach to identify foods that support the infant colonic microbiota."
Patricia Soh gave an oral presentation at the IUNS-ICN 2025 International Congress of Nutrition in Paris, France. Her talk was titled "Evaluating protein intake and quality in New Zealand vegans: Insights from temporal patterns and dietary clusters."
Yunfan Mo and Ai Ting Goh presented talks at the 16th Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium in Philadelphia, USA, 2025. Stephanie McLeod also presented three posters at the same conference.
Qayyum Shehzad gave an oral presentation at the 99th ACS Colloid & Surface Science Symposium and the 18th International Association of Colloid and Interface Scientists Conference in Canada, 2025.
Aylin Şen had the unique opportunity to visit Nestlé Switzerland to present her research on "Emulsification functionality of coconut oil body membrane materials" at the Nestlé PhD Day in 2024.
