In addition, Suzanne is a consultant to state and local administrators on school food service facilities planning. I was always interested in improving the world food supply. F ood has always been an interest of Mary Ellen's, but she didn't realize that there was a discipline devoted to the study of food. She enjoyed working in nutrition, but that field emphasized people, not the food itself. One of Mary Ellen's areas of expertise is extrusion cooking.
Extrusion cooking is the process used to manufacture many common foods and pet foods.
For example, a number of breakfast cereals and snacks are extruded foods. The University of Maine is one of a dozen or so schools that have extruders. This process is fairly new and very few women work in the area of extrusion cooking. In fact, Mary Ellen is one of very few women researchers working in this area in the United States. The interdisciplinary nature of food science allows Mary Ellen to draw on her training in biology and nutrition.