Maria Belen Salazar is a Masters student in the Food Science Department at Purdue University and is a first-year ISBT Scholarship recipient.

Maria Belen Salazar is originally from Nicaragua and completed her Bachelors in 2017 in Food Science and Technology at Zamorano University in Honduras. She is working on Dr. Jen-Yi Huang's team with a Techno-Economic analysis and Life Cycle Assessment of a beverage system as her master thesis project. Her studies entail evaluating the technical feasibility, economic profitability, and environmental sustainability of beverage processing in small and pilot scales. She is passionate about the food and beverage industry and some of her research interests are food sustainability and food security. Her career goals are to work towards sustainable food production and processing, fighting food insecurity in developing countries, and minimizing the food's environmental footprint.

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