Andrea Buettner, born in 1971, studied food chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Researching on aromas, she received her doctorate and qualification as a professor from the Technical University of Munich. Since 2007, she has built up the business field Product Performance and the department Sensory Analytics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV). Over the same period, she established the Aroma Research group at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), where she was appointed Professor of Aroma Research in 2012 and subsequently Professor and Head of the Chair of Aroma and Smell Research in 2017.

Andrea Buettner has been executive director of the Fraunhofer IVV since April 2020, where she had been director from November 2019, and deputy director from 2017. Research at the Fraunhofer IVV focuses on food, packaging, product performance, processing machinery as well as on recycling and environment. The aim is to develop new, alternative raw materials as well as manufacturing and processing techniques that save resources and energy. A further focus is on securing, recording and optimizing sensory, technofunctional as well as biological and chemical product quality along the value chain, from the raw materials to the product.

The Chair of Aroma and Smell Research at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, which Andrea Buettner has held from 2017 until today, has a focus on sensory research, particularly in the area of aroma and odorous substances. Her team at FAU also deals with nutritional physiology, perception psychology and food technology topics, which includes certain aspects of food and product perception and consumer acceptance.

Leitmotif

Enjoy life with all your senses but with the least possible harm to people and the environment.

Activities

In addition to her core area of sensory research, other current focuses of her work are on securing supplies from renewable resources, on environmental, contaminant and impurity analyses, and on developing technologies derived from these. Andrea Buettner advances this interdisciplinary research to reconcile sustainability with the needs of the consumers in numerous cooperation projects, including the  current projects C-Planet, Odeuropa, Biogenic Value Creation and Smart Farming, Campus of the Senses, and the research network SHIELD – sensory detection methods for safe domestic (organic) foods.

Awards

Andrea Buettner has been awarded the ACS Fellow Award of the Agricultural and Food Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Nutricia Science Prize, the Danone Innovation Prize, the Young Investigator Award of the Food and Agricultural Division of the ACS, the Kurt Täufel young scientist award from the Food Chemistry Society of the German Chemical Society and the Firmenich Flavor and Fragrance Science Award.

Focus

Andrea Buettner's scientific focus is on food and analytical chemistry. At FAU, she also teaches the biochemical principles of human nutrition and chemosensation.