By: Anika Zuber
On October 5th the National Dairy Shrine Honored presented Pioneer Awards to the families of Dr. Edward Guthrie and Dr. Frank Kosikowski. The Pioneer Award recognizes several dairy leaders as pioneers in the industry each year. Portraits of honorees are on exhibit in the National Dairy Shrine Hall of Fame and the National Dairy Shrine Museum in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. Both Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Kosikowski provided tremendous contributions to the dairy industry through their tenure at Cornell University in the Food Science Department.
Edward Guthrie
Dr. Edward Guthrie, formerly of Ithaca, New York, was a most respected dairy leader, teacher and researcher at Cornell University. He began his career at Cornell in 1913 and retired in 1948. During his time at Cornell, Dr. Guthrie’s interests in teaching and cooperative research were guiding forces to the creation of the American Dairy Science Association. He felt that the research community would develop faster with annual meetings of dairy researchers from across the country. Linking the organization back to his students, he also helped organize the first ADSA student chapters and helped create the first National Dairy Products Evaluation contest in 1916. For many years after, he coached the successful dairy products judging team.
Dr. Guthrie is, perhaps, most remembered for his research on dairy products and as an early pioneer in butter research. In 1918, Guthrie wrote the pre-eminent textbook on butter which was aptly called “The Book of Butter: A Text on the Nature, Manufacture and Marketing of the Product”. It has served as the industry bible on butter making for decades. A special reprint edition “The Book of Butter” was recently published. This book still has an impact today as shown by the following quote from Amazon’s website. “The demand for the rare book has brought forth the much needed reprint of this famous classic work.”
As a result of his knowledge on the subject, both New York State and National agencies solicited Guthrie’s expertise to assist in developing their procedures for sampling and regulating these products. In addition to his research and extension work, Dr. Guthrie left a lasting impact on the Cornell University campus. He was instrumental in naming Stocking Hall, which is currently home of the Food Science Department, the Milk Quality Improvement Program and the Dairy Foods Extension Team. It also holds a fully functioning dairy plant and food processing pilot plant.
Dr. Guthrie never fully retired from his research and spent a part of almost every day in his laboratory or could be found in the dairy barn gathering samples. He also maintained an active interest in his students and alumni and cared deeply about their whereabouts and doings. Upon his retirement, the alumni responded by commissioning a portrait of him that now hangs in Stocking Hall. Throughout his lifetime, Dr. Guthrie remained focused on students, teaching, research and collaborative efforts to improve the dairy food processing industry.
Frank Kosikowski
Dr. Frank Kosikowski, formerly of Ithaca, New York, was a true pioneer in dairy food research and teaching at Cornell University. Over the course of 47 years, he taught numerous undergraduates as well as 60 graduate students and 30 postdoctoral students from around the world. His ability to teach excellence, critical thinking and innovation has led to many of his students occupying leadership positions in research, education and international food development. His research on cheese and fermented food products yielded 450 scientific papers, three books, 12 patents, along with numerous technical articles and reviews. One of his books, “Cheese and Fermented Milk Foods” has become a classic in its field and continues to be widely used by students, researchers, the general public and regulatory agencies around the world, since it has been translated into several languages.
Dr. Kosikowski developed and taught a wide variety of courses including dairy products judging, butter making, cheese making, food fermentations, international food science and high protein food technology. He always looked to find solutions to the common dairy processing problems. His pioneer works were on the origins of cheese flavors, accelerated ripening of cheese, whey utilization, low-lactose milk, pasteurization and antibiotic tests for milk, the Bactotherm process, application of ultrafiltration in cheese-making and the removal of antibiotics from milk.
From his extensive world travels, Dr. Kosikowski developed an appreciation for the traditional cheese making techniques in various countries and wanted to find a way to preserve that diversity. So, in 1983, he created the American Cheese Society. Today, the society has 1,200 members and is still used by homestead cheesemakers around the country as a platform to advance their work and network with peers. He also had a lot of interest in advancing food and agriculture in developing countries. As a result, he created and instructed a course on International Food Development for 20 years and started a graduate major in International Food Science at Cornell. Because of his knowledge and experiences, he served as advisor to many countries around the world while working with international scientists to solve existing dairy problems. He also served on the expert Advisory Committee on Food Hygiene of WHO for 16 years.
The impact of Dr. Kosikowski’s work has been recognized nationally and internationally and he has received numerous honors for his lifetime efforts such as, the Dairy Industry Fellowship and Fulbright Research Scholar Award, the ADSA Borden Award and Gold Medal for Research, the ACDPI-Nordica International Award, Pfizer Award, Albert Pollio Memorial Award, Marschall Award and National Cheese Institute Award. He was also elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), decorated as an Officer Merite d’Agricole Award by the Government of France and named an Institute of Food Technologists’ IFT International Award winner. The impact of this renowned educator has been profound and truly important world-wide.
Here at Cornell Food Science, we are honored to have had these individuals build foundations for our research and create organizations we continue to support and learn from.
