Yael Vodovotz is a professor and director of the Center for Advancement of Food Science and Technology at The Ohio State University. Vodovotz earned her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts in food science followed by a postdoctoral position at NASA as part of a joint effort between University of Houston and NASA-Johnson Space Center where she worked on various aspects of the Advanced Life Support food system as well as teaching at the University of Houston. Her NASA work continued as an assistant professor at Baylor Medical School, part of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute. She joined the faculty of The Ohio State University in 2000 and became director for the Center for Advanced Functional Foods, Research and Entrepreneurship ((https://u.osu.edu/caffre/) in 2016. Vodovotz and has been working on physio-chemical and molecular properties of foods and bioplastics and has over 100 publications. She has been working with an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Horticulture and Plant Science and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering to advance the field of bioplastics for packaging applications and is team lead of Alternative Matters (https://u.osu.edu/alternativematters/).  Key to their approach is to translate innovative research to the commercial market through industry collaborations.)