RJ (Rutger) Brouwer MSc

Rutger is a PhD candidate from the Netherlands. He studied Human Nutrition and Health in wageningen between 2013 and 2019. His MSc program was focused on Sensory Science and Eating Behaviour (SSEB). 

His MSc thesis was executed in the Food Quality and Design (FQD) group of the Wageningen University & Research under the supervision of Dr. Arianne van Eck and Prof. Dr. Markus Stieger. The topic of this thesis focused on "The effect of product properties of single foods on the dynamic aroma perception of composite foods". After finishing his MSc thesis he moved to Hilversum to finalize his MSc with an internship at the Consumer and Sensory Insights team with a focus on beverages. The topic of his internship was "Optimizing an expert panel's performance and expertise after panel reconstruction".

After finishing his MSc Rutger worked at the Dutch Beer Institute in Wageningen on two different publications, which focused on meta-analyses about the effect of alcohol consumption on the human health. After his time at the Dutch Beer Institute he worked at the HungerNdThirst Foundation in Amsterdam. His work at HungerNdThirst was focused on managing various different projects that all aimed to improve the quality of life of cancer patients. One of these projects focused on the creation of recipes that focused on how to deal with taste alteration, which is a common side effect of chemotherapy. 

In 2021, he started his PhD project at Food Quality and Design. His topic is part of an overarching project called Improving the Sensory Quality of Meat Analogues. He will specifically focus on understanding flavour release and perception of plant-based meat analogues in relation to their structural and mechanical properties and oral breakdown, under supervision of Prof. Dr. Markus Stieger (FQD), Dr. Elke Scholten (FPH), and Prof. Dr. Ciarán Forde (SSEB).