Embracing Big Questions Through a Multidisciplinary Lens

Grad Student Profile

FBNS Grad Student Finds Connections and Purpose with Plasma Research

By Juliana Proffitt McCully

Wen Rivero (they/them) came to NC State with a chemical engineering degree, some farm experience, and the desire to work on big questions in food science but wasn’t sure how it would all come together.

There was a missed opportunity in packaging and an internship with an extrusion company before “the stars aligned” around the arrival of Food Engineering assistant professor Deepti Salvi’s cold plasma food preservation project.

Rivero, who will finish a PhD in Food Science in December, had no experience in plasma and says the project required all the skills built in engineering, agriculture, extrusion and bench work. It also earned them first place in the annual Envisioning Research contest for their video, “Plasma, the Future of Food Safety.” Rivero says it’s the culmination of a personal journey that rekindled joy for engineering, shaped their career goals, and bridged interests in data analysis and food science.

The competitions also underscore a sense of satisfaction in the work.

“There’s a lot of these competitions going on throughout the year, and that’s something I’ve really appreciated about NC State, especially that the competitions are paid – it makes me feel appreciated and like someone outside my little plasma group sees value in my work.”

The Farm Connection

Rivero was an undergraduate majoring in chemical engineering at Montana State University in Bozeman when the college town saw “a bit of a renaissance of the local foods movement.” Rivero became interested in how to grow food, where food came from, and how foods could be preserved longer.

“I had this interest that I could see I was spending most of my time researching outside of class, and I also had this degree and didn’t know what to do with it,” Rivero says. “So, I ended up working for a research farm at my university and was lucky to have a supervisor whose way of killing time was to quiz me about how we could make shelf-stable products from whatever crop came to mind.

“It was through these talks while harvesting that I realized there was a purpose for my chemical engineering degree in food production. However, I still didn’t know how to connect those things and how to get myself a job in the food industry.”

NC Meant to Be

“NC State is one of the very few places in the country where engineers can join the food science department, so it made a really good fit for me,” Rivero says.

They were originally interested in packaging, “but a lot of things happened so that I wasn’t able to connect with someone who was doing research and packaging. In fact, when I first came to FBNS, I wasn’t a thesis master student – I was just taking classes and looking into an internship to move on from there.”

During an internship with an extrusion company in 2018, Rivero realized they enjoyed analyzing data for insights and big-picture ideas for improving operations.

“I think that’s when the switch happened for me, being more interested in research itself,” Rivero says.

“Then, somehow, the stars aligned that when I came back from my internship, Dr. Salvi was hired at NC State, and she had a project where she needed somebody who had an engineering degree, knew how to grow plants, and how to grow plants for engineering purposes. The interesting twist of it, the skill that I didn’t have, is that we would work with plasma.

“I was meant to meet Dr. Salvi.”