Fort Valley State University

Traveling a long way from home, Dr. Zehra Guler of Turkey is spending six months at Fort Valley State University to do research as an international visiting scholar.

Guler, an associate professor at Mustafa Kemal University, is working on goat-milk research that she could have done at other schools, such as Cornell University or the University of Wisconsin which are renowned prestigious institutions in dairy technology research in the world, but she chose Fort Valley State which is a noteworthy decision, said Dr. Young Park, a professor of food science at FVSU who is working with Guler.

“She could have contacted other institutions that specialize in goat milk and goat-milk product research, but she contacted us. That’s significant for FVSU,” he said.

Park said Guler has found many of his research articles in scientific publications, and that is how she discovered Fort Valley State University as the leading institution in goat milk and its products development and their quality evaluation research in the US.

Her visit is also significant because there is no cost to the university, Park noted, and if Guler publishes her research it will bear the FVSU name.

With the financial backing of a scientific organization in Turkey, Guler is able to work with Park to study the production of reduced-fat goat-milk cheese and goat-milk yogurt made from different breeds of dairy goats.

“Usually if you take out fat you take out flavor, so we’re testing cheese with variations in flavor, texture, chemicals and nutritional value,” Park said. “Then we test consumer acceptability which is based on flavor, texture and odor.”

Guler said so far things are going well. She said she looks forward to using technological equipment she has never used and continuing her collaborative research work with Park.

“The exchange program is very important,” said Guler, who works in the city of Atakya and province of Hatay in Turkey. “I have greatly benefitted from Dr. Park’s experience in outstanding dairy goat products research.”