Caitlin Clark
About Me
I am a food scientist at the Spur Food Innovation Center, a startup university-affiliated food incubator. My team and I help food businesses achieve their goals. Usually, this means helping small food entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality. I get to help formulate products and do a lot of product development. I'm in charge of shelf-life and quality testing, and I help our sensory scientist carry out sensory studies.
I got interested in food science while I was living in Madrid, Spain and working as a linguist. There was so much interesting food, and the most fascinating experiences were with fermented foods! In 2014 I returned to my home state of Colorado to pursue graduate work in food science and fermentation. I quickly became enamored with the intricacies of cacao fermentation and processing, and Masters research investigated how to manipulate chocolate flavor during the melanging step.
I moved on to my Ph.D at Colorado State University, where I was a member of the Food Structure and Function Lab. My doctoral research focused on the possible protective effects of the sourdough microbiome on gluten-mediated intestinal pathologies. For my Masters, I worked on chocolate fermentation and post-harvest processing techniques.
Click to see my full CV
In which I keep track of my occasional new ideas, track my ongoing research, and try to organize my thoughts on subjects that I often get questions about.
In which I keep track of publications and other media outputs.
Pictures of Benny the Bunny
In which I put far too many pictures of Benny, my bunny, who is entirely unrelated to my work or research, but who makes me very happy.