Professor Joanne Hort PhD

Prof Hort took up the position of Fonterra-Riddet Chair of Consumer and Sensory Science at Massey University (NZ) in July 2017, moving after 15 years at the University of Nottingham (UK) where she was latterly SABMiller Chair of Sensory Science. Her research focuses on a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the factors effecting consumer perception of food and beverages and consequent choice behaviour in her state-of -the-art  Food Experience and Sensory Testing Lab (Feast) lab : see www.massey.ac.nz/feast

At Nottingham, Prof. Hort established the University of Nottingham Sensory Science Centre, which attained international recognition both its sensory training and research into flavour perception.  Following the creation of her Chair at Massey and as Principal Investigator in the Riddet CoRE, she has built a research team and the Feast lab to continue her exploration of consumer response to food and the factors influencing this, with traditional sensory facilities, a digital immersive space, Virtual Reality and implicit testing capability. This not only continues to support internationally recognised research in the Sensory and Consumer Science arena, but also provides a consumer-centred capability to support the New Zealand Agri-Food Industry. She is particularly interested in integrating emotional measures of consumer response, the impact of context on perception and individual differences in sensory perception across different cultures (markets) and life stages particularly in the area of taste, flavour and texture.  An international collaborator, she is interested in bringing her skill set as a New Zealand researcher in Horizon Europe projects.

Prof Hort has over 130 research publications and is co-author of the key text in Sensory Science Sensory Evaluation: a Practical Handbook (2009) and editor of three more indepth and focused texts: Time dependent measures of perception in Sensory evaluation (2017), Descriptive Analysis in Sensory Evaluation (2018) and Discrimination Testing in Sensory evaluation (2024).  Joanne is an Associate Editor of Food Quality and Preference and sits on Scientific Committees for the International Pangborn and Eurosense Symposia.  She is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Food Science and Technology, a founder member and past Chair of the European Sensory Science Society and Institute of Food Science & Technology’s Sensory Science Group.  She is a New Zealand representative for the Asian Sensory Network and Member of the NZIFST.