Engineering Interventions in Agricultural Processing

Megh R. Goyal, PhD, PE, is a Retired Professor in Agricultural and Biomedical Engineering from the General Engineering Department in the College of Engineering at University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Campus; and Senior Acquisitions Editor and Senior Technical Editor-in-Chief in Agriculture and Biomedical Engineering for Apple Academic Press Inc. He has worked as a Soil Conservation Inspector and as a Research Assistant at Haryana Agricultural University and Ohio State University. He was the first agricultural engineer to receive the professional license in Agricultural Engineering in 1986 from the College of Engineers and Surveyors of Puerto Rico. On September 16, 2005, he was proclaimed as Father of Irrigation Engineering in Puerto Rico for the twentieth century by the ASABE, Puerto Rico Section, for his pioneering work on micro irrigation, evapotranspiration, agroclimatology, and soil and water engineering. During his professional career of 45 years, he has received many prestigious awards. A prolific author and editor, he has written more than 200 journal articles and textbooks and has edited over 25 books. He received his BSc degree in engineering from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India; his MSc and PhD degrees from Ohio State University, Columbus; and his Master of Divinity degree from Puerto Rico Evangelical Seminary, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, USA. Deepak Kumar Verma is an agricultural science professional and is currently a PhD Research Scholar in the specialization of food processing engineering in the Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (WB), India. In 2012, he received a DST-INSPIRE Fellowship for PhD study by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. Mr. Verma is currently working on the research project Isolation and Characterization of Aroma Volatile and Flavoring Compounds from Aromatic and Non-Aromatic Rice Cultivars of India. His previous research work included Physico-Chemical and Cooking Characteristics of Azad Basmati (CSAR 839-3): A Newly Evolved Variety of Basmati Rice (Oryza sativa L.). He earned his BSc degree in agricultural science from the Faculty of Agriculture at Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, and his MSc (Agriculture) in Agricultural Biochemistry in 2011. He also received an award from the Department of Agricultural Biochemistry, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agricultural and Technology, Kanpur, India. Apart of his area of specialization as plant biochemistry, he has also built a sound background in plant physiology, microbiology, plant pathology, genetics and plant breeding, plant biotechnology and genetic engineering, seed science and technology, food science and technology etc. In addition, he is member of different professional bodies, and his activities and accomplishments include conferences, seminar, workshop, training, and also the publication of research articles, books, and book chapters.