ROCKVILLE, MD, US, January 16, 2020—AOAC INTERNATIONAL today announced that David Woollard, Ph.D. and Harvey Indyk, Ph.D. of New Zealand are the recipients of the 2020 Harvey W. Wiley Award, the Association’s highest honor for lifetime scientific achievement. They are being recognized for their contribution to analytical chemistry.
The two scientists have collaborated extensively to develop advanced methods for analyzing vitamin micronutrients and proteins in infant formula and other dairy-based foods.
“Infant formula is the most highly regulated food product in the world, and for good reason,” says Brendon Gill, Senior Research Scientist at Fonterra, a global dairy nutrition company. “Harvey and David’s work in developing accurate and reliable methods for measuring micronutrients in infant formula is vital to ensuring these products provide the nutrition necessary to growing healthy babies.”
Some of their pioneering techniques include applying high-performance liquid chromatography platforms to micronutrient analysis, applying inductively coupled plasma for multi-element analysis, and adopting optical biosensor technology to analyze micronutrients and milk proteins.
Many of the validated methods they have developed are widely used internationally and are reference methods within the international standards organizations AOAC INTERNATIONAL, ISO, and Codex. “Their advances have led to a paradigm shift in the way many analytical tests of dairy product are performed,” notes Dr. Palmer Orlandi, Chief Science Officer of AOAC INTERNATIONAL.
Their collaboration has produced three AOAC Official Methods, 38 peer-reviewed articles, and nine book chapters. Indyk and Woollard have also separately published an additional 43 and 32 papers, respectively.
Woollard, a former New Zealand government scientist, technical manager and consultant for several commercial laboratories, has developed countless methods in food and dairy science during his career and has served as an expert reviewer for numerous analytical science journals including the Journal of AOAC INTERNATIONAL. An active member of AOAC since 1984, Woollard has served as Member of the AOAC Official Methods Board and is currently a member of the Expert Review Panel for infant formula and dietary supplement testing. Woollard was made a Fellow of AOAC INTERNATIONAL in 1999.
Indyk currently works part-time as a Senior Research Scientist at Fonterra Cooperative Group in New Zealand, where his leadership was credited with creating a world-class micronutrient testing laboratory. An AOAC member since 1992 and a regular Expert Reviewer for the Journal of AOAC INTERNATIONAL, Indyk has received numerous AOAC awards including International Expert Review Panel Member of the Year in 2012 and 2015 and AOAC Method of the Year in 2017 and was made a Fellow of AOAC INTERNATIONAL in 2001. In 2020, Indyk was awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to analytical chemistry and the dairy industry.
Dr. Henry Chin, AOAC INTERNATIONAL President, commented that Dr. Woollard and Dr. Indyk’s scientific achievements “epitomize the spirit of the Harvey Wiley Award and demonstrate the value of the collaborative approach that is at the heart of AOAC INTERNATIONAL’s mission.”
For more information, please contact Marida Hines, Communications Manager at [email protected].