Yael Vodovotz received her B.S. in Food Science from the University of Illinois, her M.S. degree from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and her Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts. Following her doctoral degree, she held a postdoctoral position at NASA as part of a joint effort between the University of Houston and NASA Johnson Space Center, where she worked on various aspects of the Advanced Life Support food system and taught 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 Ohio State Department of Food Science and Technology as an Assistant Professor in 2000 and is currently a Professor. She has been working on physico-chemical and molecular properties of foods, emphasizing carbohydrate systems and functional foods using techniques borrowed from polymer and material sciences.