I am professor in food development with special focus on Nordic
foods and health effects at the University of Turku, Department of
Biochemistry, Food Chemistry and Food Development unit since beginning of 2020.
Part of my research group is situated at the School of Public Health and Clinical
Nutrition at the University of Eastern Finland. Since fall 2019 I am also affiliated
as visiting scientist (Marie Curie MoRE2020 Fellow) at the Division of Food and
Nutrition Science, Department of Biology and Biological Engineering at the Chalmers
University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. I have the docentship in nutrition
and food metabolomics at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern
Finland.

I completed PhD in biotechnology at the University of Kuopio 2008.
During years 2008-2014 I conducted post-doctoral research at the Department of
Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, at the University of Eastern Finland with
several research visits to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Since
2014 I have been the principal investigator in food and nutritional
metabolomics research group and led and participated in several national and
EU-funded research projects including Academy Researcher fellowship 2014-2019.

My main research focus is within the biochemistry of foods,
especially phytochemical compounds and the effect of food processing such as
fermentation on their composition. Likewise, molecular level understanding of
the role of nutrition in maintaining good health, and food-microbiota
interaction are within the core of my research. The key analytical technology
at the different stages of research is the mass-spectrometry based metabolic
profiling that I have developed and utilized for various food and nutrition
related applications, in particular within projects related to the beneficial
health effect of whole grain rich diets.