Invited Speakers

Nik is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence in Food in the School of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Leeds. His research is focused on developing digital technologies and solutions to address environmental sustainability, food safety and health challenges in food production systems. His particular expertise lies within combining low costs sensors (e.g. acoustic and optical) with machine learning models to monitor and optimise production processes and predict food properties. Nik is a Chartered Engineer with a MEng in Mechanical Engineering (University of Hull, 2006) and PhD in Chemical Engineering (University of Leeds, 2010). From 2010 - 2014 Nik worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant in the Food Physics Lab at the University of Leeds and from 2014 - 2023 Nik was an Assistant/Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Nottingham. 

• Personal Website: Professor Nicholas Watson | Faculty of Environment | University of Leeds
• Current Circular Bioeconomy Projects:
• Enhancing Agri-Food Transparent Sustainability (EATS): EATS
• AI-Optimised Fermentation for Sustainable Protein Production from Food Side Streams | School of Food Science and Nutrition | University of Leeds
• Connecting producers and consumers to enable more sustainable consumption: communicating the environmental impact of food through packaging: Connecting producers and consumers to enable more sustainable consumption: communicating the environmental impact of food through packaging | Horizon CDT Research Highlights