College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences

Paul Kindstedt, PhD

Professor, Graduate Program Coordinator

For the past decade my research program has focused on determining the identity, mechanisms of formation, and causative factors of crystals in cheese, and elucidating the direct and indirect effects that crystals have on cheese appearance and texture. After my research group received two international research awards from the International Dairy Foods Association/American Dairy Science Association and the Mineralogical Association of Canada in 2018, I shifted out of laboratory research in 2019 to pursue new forms of scholarship focused on cheese history and its intersection with past climate change events.

My teaching focuses on the history of cheese and its place in western civilization and beyond (NFS 050 Cheese and Culture), and an in-depth overview of the science and technology of cheesemaking (NFS 195 Principles of Cheesemaking)

Research and/or Creative Works

The goal of my current scholarship is to use cheese history as a lens to illustrate the profound effects that past rapid climate change events had on human communities, and the roles that dairying and cheesemaking have played in community sustainability and resiliency.

TED Talk: A brie(f) History of Cheese

Publications

Kindstedt, P.S. and P.J. Polowsky. 2021. Crystals in cheese: More than a curiosity. J. Dairy Sci. 104: 1233-1250. DOI:https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2020-19119
Kindstedt, P.S. 2019. Symposium review: The Mozzarella/pasta filata years. J. Dairy Sci. 102:10670-10676.
Kindstedt, P.S. and T. Ser-Od. 2019. Survival in a climate of change: The origin and evolution of nomadic dairying in Mongolia. Gastronomica 19(3):20-28.
Publicover, H. and P.S. Kindstedt. 2018. Eating Curds Their Way? Early rabbinic rulings on Jewish cheesemaking and the cheese of non-Jews. Food Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8(4):17-27.
Kindstedt, P.S. 2018. Creating a Third Culture. God and Nature. Fall 18
Polowsky, P.J., P.S. Kindstedt and J.M. Hughes. 2018. Size, Shape, and Identity of Surface Crystals and their Relationship to Sensory Perception of Grittiness is Soft Smear-ripened Cheeses. J. Dairy Sci. 101:10720-10732.
Polowsky, P.J., G.F. Tansman, P.S. Kindstedt and J.M. Hughes. 2018. Characterization and identification of surface crystals on smear ripened cheese by polarized light microscopy. J. Dairy Sci. 101:7714-7723.
Tansman, G., P.S. Kindstedt and J.M. Hughes. 2017. Minerals in food: Crystal structures of ikaite and struvite from bacterial smears on washed-rind cheese. The Canadian Mineralogist 55:89-100.
Kindstedt, P.S. 2017. With all your mind. God and Nature. Winter/Spring 17
Tansman, G., P.S. Kindstedt and J.M. Hughes. 2017. Crystallization and demineralization phenomena in stabilized paste white mold cheese. J. Dairy Sci. 100:6074-6083.
Tansman, G., P.S. Kindstedt and J.M. Hughes. 2017. Crystallization and demineralization phenomena in washed rind cheese. J. Dairy Sci. 100:8694-8704.
Kindstedt, P.S. 2017. The History of Cheese. Chapter 1 in Global Cheesemaking Technology: Cheese quality and characteristics. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp. 3-19.
Kindstedt, P.S. 2016. Origin of Cheese. Article in The Oxford Companion to Cheese, C.W. Donnelly, ed., Oxford University Press USA, New York. P. 528-31.
Tansman, G., P.S. Kindstedt and J.M. Hughes. 2015. Crystal fingerprinting: Elucidating the crystals of Cheddar, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Gouda and soft washed-rind cheeses using powder X-ray diffractometry. Dairy Sci. Technol. 95(5):651-664. DOI 10.1007/s13594-015-0225-6

Awards and Recognition

2022 – Babcock Award for Exemplary Service in Educating and Training the United States Dairy Industry. Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association
2021 – President, American Dairy Science Association Foundation
2020 – Elected Vice President, American Dairy Science Association Foundation
2019 – Appointed Chair of the Board of Trustees, American Dairy Science Association Foundation
2018 – International Dairy Foods Association Research Award in Dairy Foods Processing, American Dairy Science Association.
2018 – The Hawley Award for best 2017 article published in The Canadian Mineralogist, Mineralogical Association of Canada

In 2018 my research team received two international awards for our research on cheese crystals form the International Dairy Foods Association/American Dairy Science Association and the Mineralogical Association of Canada.

Over the years I have been interviewed by many local, national and international media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, National Geographic, National Public Radio and British Broadcasting Company.

Associations and Affiliations

My professional service over the course of my career has been dedicated to the dairy farming and cheese industries. My early service was mostly with the American Dairy Science Association, as well as the International Dairy Federation. Later, I helped to support the formation of the Vermont Cheese Council, and was named the first Honorary Lifetime Member of the Council. Later still, I served on the Board of Directors of the Vermont Dairy Industry Association from 2010 to 2019. Most recently, I served on the Board of Directors of the American Dairy Science Association from 2014 to 2017, and then served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Dairy Science Association Foundation from 2019 to 2020.

I am currently President (as of 7.14.2021) of the American Dairy Science Association.