Thesis Topics
These projects can be adapted for students enrolled in the postgraduate diploma, honours, Masters or PhD degrees. You will need to consult with the appropriate academic to refine the project to your particular degree program.
You may also wish to consider developing your own project that more suits your interests. Further details can be obtained by Emailing the academic associated with each particular project.
- Dr Alaa El-din Bekhit
- Dr John Birch
- Professor Phil Bremer
- Dr David W. Everett
- Dr Karen Lusk
- Dr Miranda Mirosa
- Professor Indrawati Oey
Dr. Aladin Bekhit
Email for a list of projects.
Dr. John Birch
Email for a list of projects.
Professor Phil Bremer
Email for a list of projects.
Dr. David W. Everett
- A novel food ingredient isolated from New Zealand red seaweed
- How lecithin adsorption onto the casein micelle affects heat stability of dairy products
- The conformation of milk proteins on the surface of an oil emulsion globule and investigations into inter–surface reactions
- Plant coagulants as alternatives to calf chymosin in cheese manufacture
- Structure of the native milk fat globule membrane layer
- Fat globule structure of Mozzarella cheese during ripening
- Polysaccharides as fat replacers in cheese
- Interfacial engineering and properties of food emulsions
Dr. Karen Lusk
Email for a list of projects.
Dr. Miranda Mirosa
- Food policy (and regulations) and implications for consumers
- Consumers and food choice (e.g. attitudes, values, perceptions of quality)
- Behaviour change
- Food activism and food-related social movements
Call for food waste related thesis projects:
As the impacts of climate change, peak oil and food insecurity start to hit home "food waste" looks set to become one of the major environmental and social justice issues of our time. As an agricultural-based, export-orientated country that relies heavily on a 'clean, green' image, New Zealand has every reason to be at the forefront of efforts to reduce food losses and waste throughout our food supply chains. Despite this, we have been considerably slower than most to move on this issue, with Britain, for example, identifying waste as a key priority area in their food strategy report Food 2030 (Defra, 2011). There is a general consensus amongst consumers, state and private sector that food waste is both morally and economically outrageous. As such, food waste is likely to be an effective way to initiate some of the other more general pro-environmental/social behaviour changes that we are fighting for in our food systems. This makes food waste a timely topic for researchers to engage with:
Research themes that I am interested in potentially supervising projects in include, but are not limited to, are:
- The ethics of food waste (e.g. environmental justice, social justice);
- The metrics of food waste (e.g. waste metrology, politics of measurement, international food audit standards);
- Waste behaviours (e.g. household food waste decision making, cultural consumption of waste, food waste and corporate social responsibility, drivers for behaviour change, activism);
- The governance of food waste (e.g. policy analyses, neoliberalisation and waste);
- Food waste innovation (e.g. food waste utilisation, new product and service opportunities relating to waste).
Professor Indrawati Oey
Email for a list of projects.