Jacob Lahne
1230 Washington Street SW
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Education
- Ph.D., Animal, Nutrition, and Food Sciences, University of Vermont, 2014
- M.S., Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, 2010
- B.A., Mathematics, Oberlin College, 2006
Professional Appointments
2023 - Present: Associate Professor, Department of Food Science and Technology, Virginia Tech
2017 - 2023: Assistant Professor, Department of Food Science and Technology, Virginia Tech
2014 - 2017: Assistant Professor, Department of Culinary Arts and Food Science Drexel University
2015: Visiting Scholar, Heymann Lab, Department of Viticulture and Enology, University of California-Davis
The overall objective of Dr. Lahne's research program is to develop new methods for the sensory evaluation and analysis of foods and to use those methods to generate knowledge in unexplored areas of sensory science. His efforts to achieve this are centered in 3 areas: an emphasis on developing novel, rapid methods and measurement tools in a variety of sensory-related fields for understanding human perceptions of food; a programmatic focus on the sensory evaluation of fermented and distilled beverages; and a commitment to bringing critical, interdisciplinary scholarship to the insular world of food-sensory science. Dr. Lahne's current projects mostly focus on understanding the sensory qualities of Virginia (and American) hard cider, the application of Natural Language Processing methodologies to unstructured consumer descriptions of food, and the critical integration of food science and food studies.