Dr. Min Jeong (MJ) Kang earned her Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology at the University of Georgia under the guidance of Dr. Joonhyuk Suh. Her research integrates metabolomics and machine learning to advance agricultural science, with the goal of improving crop quality and human health.
Her doctoral dissertation, “Pathway-based metabolomics approach for evaluation of Georgia pecan quality: Kernel color and scab resistance”, focused on discovering biomarkers that influence pecan quality, including desirable postharvest color and resistance to scab disease. Through this work, she combined analytical chemistry (LC-MS/MS QqQ, GC-MS, HPLC-DAD/RI), multi-omics integration, and machine learning to advance biomarker discovery in crops. She also explored key flavor compounds in honey and plasma biomarkers related to pecan consumption.
Dr. Kang also holds an M.S. in Nutritional Science & Food Management from the Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI), where she specialized in sensory evaluation, food processing, and data analysis. Her thesis examined how enzyme treatments, milling methods, and cultivar genotypes affect whole wheat flour quality. Beyond this, she has conducted sensory studies—including consumer testing and quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA)—across diverse products such as soybean paste, tea, Korean traditional liquor, wheat beer, and cooked rice.
Outside of the lab, MJ enjoys playing video games, especially League of Legends and Age of Empires II. True to her passion for food, she also loves discovering new restaurants and sharing good meals with friends and family.
More about her work can be found at: https://minjeong94.github.io/