Meet the Jury Ellen Kuhl on AI and the mechanics of food: accelerating and democratizing discovery and innovation

Arenberg Doctoral School is proud to invite you to Meet The Jury!

When internationally renowned experts visit KU Leuven as a member of a PhD Examination Committee, we like to seize this opportunity to give this expert a forum to a large audience. All members of Science, Engineering & Technology are most welcome to the Meet The Jury Lectures.

Prof. Ellen Kuhl (Stanford University, USA) will give a lecture on “AI and the mechanics of food: accelerating and democratizing discovery and innovation”.

By 2050, feeding nearly 10 billion people will require transformative changes to ensure nutritious, sustainable food for all. Our current food system is inefficient and unsustainable. Traditional attempts to transform the global food system are too slow to drive innovation at scale. This talk will explore the potential of artificial intelligence to reshape the future of food. It will discuss the data needed to define a new food product, and highlight challenges where AI can help us design nutritious, delicious, and sustainable foods for all. By leveraging AI to democratize food innovation, we can accelerate the transition to resilient global food systems that meet the urgent challenges of food security, climate change, and planetary health. More specifically, the talk will focus on fungi steak as a structurally robust and sensorially appealing innovation with broad implications for human and planetary health. Fungi-based meat offers a nutritious, sustainable, and minimally processed alternative to traditional animal and plant-based proteins. Yet, its mechanical and sensory properties remain poorly understood. During this seminar, Prof. Kuhl will uncover the unique mechanical signature of a novel fungi-based food using multiaxial testing, rheology, and automated model discovery.

Following the lecture, there will be opportunity for young researchers to interact with her.

• Venue: Building: 391-11 (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Celestijnenlaan 300 3001 Heverlee), Room: C300 00.77 aula E
• Date: 30 April 2026 – 14:30-15:30
• Prof. Ellen Kuhl is visiting KU Leuven on the occasion of the PhD defence of Thibault Vervenne