It's the perfect job for Edel Conway. With a background in teaching and a Master's in food science, she wondered if she would ever be able to marry the two areas. Then, hey presto! The Food Safety Authority of Ireland just happened to be looking for someone who had those very qualifications. Her experience and her studies meant that she was tailor-made for the job.
"I'm really happy with what I'm doing now. I can tie in my background in both of the areas," says Conway, who has worked as an education executive with the FSAI for the past three years. There was a time when she thought she'd have to choose between the disciplines of teaching and food science. "There were aspects of both that I liked, but now both are needed in this job."
Having completed that master's degree at UCD, she finally hung up her white lab coat, left the test-tubes and microscopes behind and moved into a new and developing role in food science. She is no longer working in research. She works in the education area now, preparing food safety information packs, liaising with industry and primary schools and visiting teachers and their schools. The first stop on the circuitous route to her current job started in Convent of Mercy Secondary School, which overlooks the beach at Spanish Point in Co Clare. "I was always interested in science, among other things," she says, but "science stood out" as her favourite. Home economics was another favourite. When she sat her Leaving Certificate exam in 1990 she wasn't sure what she wanted. But she went for a three-year diploma programme in food science at DIT Cathal Brugha Street. One of her projects included product development for a vegetarian-based pate. Work on this included microbiological and sensory analyses.
"We had a lot of practical work to do. There were four main subjects - food chemistry, food microbiology, food processing and nutrition." There was about 30 in the class starting out. There was a lot more women than men, possibly, she figures, because of women's link with "the food end of things". The course also involved work experience. All through second year she spent one day a week with Premier Dairies in Finglas, Dublin. Then in third year she spent six weeks working in the National Food Centre in Castleknock, Dublin, testing the effect of fertilisers on the nitrate content of potatoes.
On graduating, she went on to DIT Kevin Street to do a degree, which is awarded by Reading University, a graduate diploma in the Institute of Food Science and Technology.
"After finishing that, I had a lot of work done in project work, so I went into teaching." She taught for four years, completing a H.Dip at TCD during this period. She taught more home economics than science, teaching in the Liberties College, in St Patrick's Cathedral Grammar School and in Loretto School in Rathfarnham. However, she wanted to get back to food science.
She enjoyed teaching but the call of academia grew too strong and her real love of food science eventually drew her back to study for a master's at UCD. "I felt I had gone so far and then taken a different direction. I wanted to get back to food science. I loved being in UCD. The food science department was fantastic. It covered every single range of food science - production, legislation, anything you could possible think of." She did a project on the treatment of obesity "because it's topical and it will be more of a problem in years to come".
She graduated with in 1997. There was about 25 on the course from different areas with "vets, home economics teachers, microbiologists, nutritionists, people with food science backgrounds like myself". Her job today, which begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m, involves working with and visiting schools, giving talks, travelling, preparing information and liaising with industries.
It's not like being in a lab at all, she says. Today, she's in an office, dealing with people. Soon, the focus will shift to educating those who work in food processing in industry. Conway is all set to teach them, too, about food science.
