Daina Kārkliņa (1950–2020) food scientist

Dr.sc.ing. Daina Kārkliņa passed away on 13 April 2020. She was a corresponding member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences (since 2006), a full member of the Latvian Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (since 1995) and a professor of the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies. For many years, she was an unsurpassed authority on brewing technology, a well-known professional in production and sensory evaluation of alcoholic beverages. Daina Kārkliņa graduated, in 1973, from the Faculty of Food Technology, Latvia Academy of Agriculture (now Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies), obtaining the qualification of engineer-technologist in food technology. In 1993, she defended her doctoral thesis, “The role of Saccharomyces genus in apple wine quality insurance”, for obtaining the Doctoral degree in engineering science (Dr.sc.ing.). Her research interests were related to fermentation technologies, functional foods, and bioactive compounds in plant origin food materials. She was the dean of the Faculty of Food Technology (1993–2006) and the head of the Department of Food Technology (2007–2017). She actively participated in initiating, preparation and realisation the food science as independent science discipline in Latvian science nomenclature. D. Kārkliņa worked at the Faculty of Food Technology as a professor, the head of the Promotion Council in Food Science, the director of the doctoral study programme Food Science. She was a co-founder of the joint universities master study programme Nutrition. D. Kārkliņa is an author of more than 500 publications, including research articles, monographs and textbooks. One of her most prominent and cited publications, “Nutritional composition of freshly harvested and stored Latvian potato varieties depending on traditional cooking methods” (published in Journal of Food Composition and Analysis), was prepared together with a doctoral student. She has success-fully supervised 13 doctoral students.