Name: Benjamin Holman

Position: Meat Scientist

Organisation: Centre for Red Meat and Sheep Development, NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI)

Career Brief

Since completing my PhD (University of Tasmania) I have investigated red meat, at the NSW DPI. My efforts in this role have been recognised with a 2017 AMPC Science and Innovation Award for Young People in Agriculture, 2017 Australia-China Young Scientist Exchange Delegation Position, and 2016 Diploma of Scientific Achievement from Warsaw University of Life Sciences. These have only been achieved through the support of NSW DPI Cowra, meat team members and other collaborations.

Research and Teaching Activities and Interests

Research activities

My research interests include validating measures of meat quality; exploring production and processing system effects on red meat; innovative packaging of muscle-based foods; optimising storage combinations to deliver better preservation; and all novel approaches to better match meat-to-market (including dark cutting evaluations).

Teaching activities

Post-graduate student supervision

Professional Links

Australian Society of Animal Production

A typical day for me includes …

A typical day should include project conception; funding procurement; operational and logistical management; lab, field-based (abattoir) and statistical analyses; scientific interpretation; communication of results; and helping students, technical staff and visiting scholars.

On a good day, I can achieve one or two of these.

My main project at the moment is …

A Graham Centre Member Support Grant has allowed me to focus on the effects of long-term chilled storage effects on the ‘healthy’ unsaturated fatty acid content of beef.

My favourite part of my job is …

Critical thinking – I enjoy learning or discovering something and then considering the ‘whys’.

When I am not in the office I like …

Pretending to be a golfer