The Australian Research Council announced this week the 50 recipients across Australia of its Early Career Industry Fellowship program. Alongside 5 other University of Adelaide recipients, we are delighted to share the news that Australian Wine Research Institute Senior Research Scientist, Mango Parker has been awarded one of these prestigious fellowships to support her work on smoke taint.
Mango’s project is part of the University of Adelaide, and involves a number of key industry partners including the Australian Wine Research Institute, CSIRO and Defence, Science and Technology. Her three-year project will focus on “Decoding airborne volatiles in environmental smoke that taint wine” and is testament to her outstanding track record of working together with industry over many years.
Mango Parker has a strong track record in aroma and flavour chemistry research, with 25 peer-reviewed publications covering smoke taint, volatiles, non-volatiles, rotundone, phenolics and tannin. She was awarded the inaugural Manfred Rothe Gold prize for Excellence in Flavour Science in 2019, for her PhD work which established that naturally occurring grape-derived glycosides can contribute to wine flavour by releasing odorants in the mouth during tasting. She started her career in 1999 in the Southcorp Wine graduate program, and has maintained strong industry connections through her research. Mango has presented at conferences in Germany, Austria and Australia, and has recorded several podcasts on smoke taint and wine flavour, including an episode of the BBC’s Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox, Professor Brian Schmidt, Robin Ince, Dr Patricia Williamson and Tim Minchin. You can find out more about Mango’s work here.