Ricardo J. Simpson, In memoriam from WSU
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Ricardo J. Simpson, our dear Chilean colleague who dedicated most of his professional career to Food and Chemical Engineering. Everyone who met Ricardo will remember him as a great man, an extraordinary engineer, a highly dedicated scientist, and an excellent teacher. He was a true gentleman who recognized and elevated the talents of others. He was very friendly, a family man and very much loved and admired by his students, his peers, family members and friends.
Ricardo was a Professor at the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Federico Santa María Technical University, Valparaíso, Chile. He received his BS in Biochemical Engineering from Valparaíso Catholic University, Chile and MS and PhD in Food Engineering at the Department of Food Science and Technology, Oregon State University, USA. He was an IFT Fellow, IAFoST Fellow (International Academy of Food Science and Technology) and Chilean Representative within IAEF (International Association for Engineering and Food). He was Co-Chair of very relevant international events in his home country such as ICEF X (International Congress on Engineering and Food, 2008), CIBIA IV (Ibero American Congress on Food Engineering, 2003) and CIBIA XI (2017). In his country he provided leadership to a number of professional societies dealing with food and chemical engineering. Among many executive positions, it is worth mentioning he was twice the President of the Chilean Institute of Food Engineering (IChIA).
Ricardo dedicated significant amount of time to teaching where he excelled as demonstrated by the numerous awards he received in his institution such as “Teacher of Excellence” in two occasions. Former students always highlight the mark Ricardo left on them, not only as a superior teacher, but for the values he conveyed to them on how to face personal and professional life with integrity, determination, and faith. As a contribution to undergraduate education, among many others, he published together with Sudhir Sastry an excellent book titled “Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, Fundamental Concepts for First-Year Students”. Among many other administrative positions, he was Department Chair; Director of the Master Program in his department for a number of years, he was instrumental in putting together a multidisciplinary doctoral program in Applied Engineering, served as a Member of the Academic Council as well as the Superior Council, all at Federico Santa María Technical University.
He made significant contributions to the body of knowledge in thermal processing and packaging of food as evidenced by his more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 20 book chapters, countless invited and volunteered presentations. Specifically he has outstanding contributions in the field of modeling, simulation, control, and process optimization of low acid foods. He published either as an author or editor excellent books that became classics, essentials for those working on engineering topics, mainly, as mentioned, in thermal processing.. These are the most relevant ones,
- Holdsworth, D., and Simpson, R. “Thermal Processing of Packaged Foods – 2nd Edition”, Springer, 2007.
- Simpson, R. “Engineering Aspects of Thermal Processing” (Editor), CRC Press, 2009
- Aguilera, J.M., Barbosa-Cánovas, G.V., Simpson, R., Welti-Chanes, J., Bermudez-Aguirre, D. Food Engineering Interfaces (Editors), Springer 2011
- Simpson, R. and Sastry, S. “Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, Fundamental Concepts for First-Year Students”, Springer 2013.
- Holdsworth, D., and Simpson, R. “Thermal Processing of Packaged Foods – 3rd Edition”, Springer, 2015
Ricardo was a highly decorated colleague who received numerous awards, scholarships, recognitions like the Chilean President scholarship to conduct graduate studies at Oregon State University, two Andes Foundation scholarships to spend time at US institutions, two scholarships granted by the Government of France to conduct research at CIRAD and IFREMER, sabbatical leaves at Ohio State University; USA; University of California-Davis, USA; McGill University, Canada; Unilever-Vlaardingen, The Netherlands. It should be highlighted Ricardo received from the Chilean Engineering Academy the major award it grants, the National Award.
In terms of professional contributions, Ricardo was continuously working with food companies in Chile and abroad. As an example of his meaningful contribution to the food industry it should be mentioned that in 1998 he collaborated in a preliminary study with scientists from Malloa-Unilever, San Fernando, Chile to improve tomato concentration. This project resulted in a major change the way tomato concentration is conducted. This preliminary work continued at Unilever-Vlaardingen where a unique simulation and optimization software for thermal processing of foods was developed. Based on this software it was possible for the first time to implement a variable retort process which optimizes food quality of canned foods at the industrial scale.
We tried to highlight some of the immense number of scientific and technical contributions by Ricardo Simpson throughout his prolific professional career. By no means this is a comprehensive recount all what he did, but an effort to recognize his involvement with the profession in many different capacities. All his accolades will not overshadow what he was as a human being but let’s take these words as a tribute to a man of integrity who honored our profession throughout his life.