People need food throughout their lives to survive. Despite the decreasing availability of land required for agricultural production, the growing world population makes it increasingly difficult for people to access the food they need for nutrition on a global scale. Indeed, over the years, food prices have risen more significantly compared to other consumer goods, and a growing number of people are facing the issue of insufficient access to adequate food. In this context, the importance of Food Engineers, who play an active role at every stage from farm to table in ensuring that raw materials reach the consumer as food, is increasing day by day.

Our department, which began its educational activities by accepting its first undergraduate and graduate students in 2015, aims to train qualified food engineers who possess the characteristics needed by the sector, are equipped with current knowledge, and have reinforced their theoretical knowledge with practical applications. Additionally, we aim to carry out R&D activities through graduate studies to address the problems faced by our country's food industry.

The four-year undergraduate education in Food Engineering covers basic science, basic engineering, and food science/technology topics. Our department's curriculum has been meticulously designed to ensure that our graduates possess the qualities needed by the sector. In this context, our students will spend the entire last semester working as intern engineers in the industry, thus reinforcing the knowledge and skills they have acquired in courses through practical application. We believe that the intern engineering approach, which is applied by very few universities in our country, is of critical importance in preparing our students for post-graduation and that this practice will facilitate our graduates in finding employment.

We welcome all students who will enroll in our undergraduate and graduate programs this year and wish them success.

Prof. Dr. Rasim Alper ORAL

Head of Food Engineering Department