Food Science professor Alejandro Marangoni has won the prestigious Supelco/Nicholas Pelick Research Award from the American Oil Chemists’Society (AOCS).

The award, which includes a $10,000 prize, honours substantial contributions to basic lipid science over a lifetime of research. It’s considered the most prestigious in the field of lipids; three Nobel laureates are among its recipients.

Marangoni, a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Food, Health and Aging, studies the physical properties of foods, particularly fat crystallization and structure. He has published more than 200 research articles, 50 book chapters and nine books; he holds 14 patents.

Marangoni has developed healthier zero-trans, low-saturate substances used in baking. He also researches oleogels, novel materials replacing beef fat in meat products and being used in “green” bicycle lubricants and ski waxes.

He is the recipient of many previous awards from AOCS, including the first Young Scientist Award, the T.L. Mounts Award and the 2013 Stephen S. Chang Award. He’s also won two Distinguished Researcher Awards from the Ontario Innovation Trust; a Career Award from the Canada Foundation for Innovation; an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, given to the top six Canadian scientists from all disciplines; and a 1999 Premier’s Research Excellence Award.