Industry Insights: The Collaborative Business of Better Seafood

Industry Insights: The Collaborative Business of Better Seafood
Wednesday, Aug. 27 | 4 p.m. PT | Online via Zoom

Where some see low-value leftovers, others see a thrilling opportunity for innovation. It’s this spirit of ingenuity that makes Oregon State a sought-after partner in academic-industry collaborations.

Join us for the first event in the new Industry Insights webcast series. The inaugural panel, presented in partnership with the Astoria Seafood Lab and College of Agricultural Sciences, will spotlight the OSU experts shaping the future of food science and Oregon’s coastal industries.

During this conversation, you’ll:

• Hear from OSU experts about pushing food science forward. Guests include professor emeritus and OSU Surimi School founder Jae Park, bioelectrical impedance analysis trailblazer Keith Cox, research and development executive John Lin, Ph.D. ’96 and Technical Food Lab Manager at WACKER Matt Fowler, '15.
• Discover the power of collaboration between academia and industry.
• Learn how engagement with OSU has benefited alumni now working in industry and get inspired by stories of alumni thinking outside the box as they use their OSU education to create a better future for all.
• Get the inside scoop on the forthcoming Food & Beverage Industry Network, designed to help engage and connect alumni and industry professionals in this vital and growing field.

About the Speakers:

Jae Park, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Oregon State University Seafood Lab
President, Jae Park Surimi School

Jae Park retired from OSU in 2021 after serving for 29 years. Prior, he was a technical director at the crabstick manufacturer SeaFest/JAC Creative Foods, currently owned by Trident Seafoods, from 1987–1992. Having devoted his entire professional career to fish protein (surimi) research and education, Park has distinguished himself as an internationally renowned scientist in surimi research, education and technology transfer. He received numerous awards to recognize his accomplishments regionally, nationally and internationally, including IFT Fellow in 2007 and Bor S. Luh International Award in 2016. His surimi textbook, Surimi and Surimi Seafood (2000, 2005 and 2014) is used as a production and technical guide by numerous manufacturers globally. As a mentor, he trained over 40 graduate and post-graduate students, along with 9 ‘grand-students’ (his former students’ students). He has hosted over 50 international researchers who conducted various research projects as visiting scientists and published over 200 refereed journal articles and book chapters. He founded the OSU Surimi School in 1993 and Surimi Industry Forum in 2001 and offered the programs annually in Oregon: His program extended to Thailand, France, Spain, Japan, China and Korea. His 77 different surimi forum and surimi school programs have trained over 7,500 attendees since 1993. He continues to offer his surimi education programs internationally under Jae Park Surimi School.

Keith Cox, Ph.D.
Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Bialume Technologies
Co-founder, Certified Quality Foods, Inc.

Marlin Keith Cox is a bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) trailblazer with more than two decades of fieldwork across Alaska’s remote communities. He co‑founded Certified Quality Foods, where he linked BIA instruments to cloud dashboards now used for real‑time seafood quality grading, and in 2024 launched Bialume Technologies to push portable, high‑precision BIA devices into laboratories, aquaculture sites and other demanding environments to measure molecular, cellular and tissue biomarkers in real time. A former director of the Alaska Native Science & Engineering Program and a science judge for the XPRIZE Foundation, Cox has led several multidisciplinary teams from concept to commercialization, published widely on nonlethal fish condition assessment and food‑quality analytics and was inducted into the Alaska Innovators Hall of Fame in 2021. He also completed a postdoc at the Oregon State University Seafood Laboratory.

John Lin, Ph.D. ’96
Vice President, Research and Development, Quality Assurance, and Value Creation Team, Pacific Seafood Group
Courtesy Faculty, Department of Food Science, Oregon State University

John Lin serves as the VP for research and development, quality assurance, and value creation team for Pacific Seafood Group, the largest privately owned, vertically integrated seafood company in North America. With more than 20 years of academic and industry experience, Lin oversees Pacific Seafood’s efforts in making continuous products and processes improvements. His contributions to the company include developing state-of-the-art processing technologies to improve product quality, food safety and processing efficiency while reducing processing waste. Lin also is a former board member of the OSU Food Innovation Center and has served on the technical committees of the National Fisheries Institute and Seafood Products Association. He is a co-author for several chapters of Surimi and Surimi Seafood and served for many years as a reviewer for the Journal of Food Science.

Matt Fowler, M.S. ’15
Technical Lab Manager, WACKER Chemical Corporation

Matt Fowler is a food scientist with more than a decade of experience in research and development in both consumer packaged goods and ingredients. He earned his master’s degree from Oregon State University's Department of Food Science and Technology, conducting research at the OSU Seafood Lab in Astoria under the mentorship of Jae Park. His research focused on the use of salmon blood plasma to inhibit protease enzymes — preventing unwanted protein breakdown to improve the texture and stability of surimi during processing. Fowler currently serves as a technical lab manager at WACKER Chemical Corporation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he leads food applications involving cyclodextrins, including their use in surimi as cryoprotectants (substances that protect food from damage during freezing and thawing). Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, fishing, cooking and spending time with his wife and two young sons.

About the OSU Seafood Lab:

Located in Astoria, Oregon, the OSU Seafood Lab is part of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station and affiliated with OSU’s Department of Food Science and Technology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. As the only seafood experiment station on the West Coast and home to the worldwide Surimi School, the lab plays a central role in seafood product innovation; quality assurance; and instruction of students and global industry professionals alike, supporting a sustainable and competitive seafood industry locally and globally.

Location

Online