Education

• BE Food Engineering from Universidad de las Americas Puebla, Mexico
• MS Food Science from Universidad de las Americas Puebla, Mexico
• PhD Biological and Agricultural Engineering from Washington State University
• Post-Doctoral Research Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico

Research

Areas of interest include improvement of product safety through traditional and novelty processing technologies. Modeling the effects of food properties and environmental factors on foodborne pathogen inactivation and resistance, with emphasis in low moisture foods.

Science and engineering education, with a focus on development, implementation, and assessment of research based science/engineering activities in undergraduate settings.

Teaching and/or Extension Activities

• 3+1 program Heat and Mass Transfer, Engineering Properties of Food Laboratory and Food Engineering Unit Operations

Publications

• Liu, S., Villa-Rojas, R., Gray, P., Zhu, M., Shyam, S., Tang, J. 2018. Enterococcus faecium NRRL B2354 as a Surrogate for Salmonella Enteridis PT 30 in Thermal Treating Wheat Flour. Food Microbiology. 74: 92 – 99.
• Tadapaneni, R. K., Syamaladevi, R. M., Villa-Rojas, R., Tang, J. 2017. Design of a Novel Thermal-Water Activity Cell (TAC) to Study Thermal Resistance of Salmonella in Low Moisture Foods. Journal of Food Engineering. 208: 48 – 56.
• Villa-Rojas, R., Valdez-Fragoso, A., Mujica-Paz, H. 2017. Manufacturing Methods and Engineering Properties of Pectin-Based Nanobiocomposite Films. Journal of Food Engineering Reviews. 10(1): 46 – 56.
• Villa-Rojas, R., Zhu, M. J. Marks, B. P., Tang, J. 2017. Radiofrequency Inactivation of Salmonella Enteritidis PT 30 and Enterococcus faecium in Flour at Different Water Activities. Biosystems Engineering. 156: 7–16.
• Syamaladevi, R. M., Tang, J., Villa-Rojas, R., Sablani, S., Carter, B., Campbell, G., Tadapaneni, R. V. 2016. Influence of Water Activity on Thermal Resistance of Microorganisms in Low-Moisture Foods: A Review. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 15(2): 353–370