Erik Kaunisto

Erik has a Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering/Pharmaceutical technology with more than 17 years professional experience of multiphysics modeling/simulation of transport phenomena related to pharma and food processing and product development. Erik has a diversified role as both a project leader and operative within single research and/or development projects with customers and stakeholders. Eriks experience within food and pharma development covers a broad range of applications, such as swelling matrix formulations for controlled release, colloidal mechanisms for particle deaggregation, traditional and/or microwave assisted pasteurization and sterilization processing, migration in packaging materials and fiber formation during extrusion of meat analogues. Erik is also a co-developer of an interactive VR tool for the molecular visualization software Chimera X for analysis of Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) data and also works with developing accelerated point scatterer Debye models and Fourier transform-based models for their interpretation. Erik has experience with computational softwares and simulation tools, such as Comsol Multiphysics, Matlab, C++, Python och Fortran.

Erik has worked as a project leader for the H2020 EU-project "NextGenProteins" 2019-2023 and a couple of other research and/or development projects during his time at RISE. In NextGenProteins, the focus has been to develop novel protein fortified food products, using microalgae, insects and single cell proteins. Eriks reamining time is dedicated mainly to writing project proposals, tendering and maintaining customer and stakeholder relationships.

As a person, Erik is curious, flexible and intuitive and appreciates the combination of research and practical problem solving. Erik likes challenges out of his comfort zone and always strives to learn more from colleagues and project partners to develop both existing and new skillsets.