Edna Park Lecture

The Professor Edna W. Park Lecture is an annual marquee event at the University of Toronto's Department of Nutritional Sciences, established in the spring of 1974 by the Household Science Alumni.

The lectureship was created in 1974 to honour Professor Emerita Edna W. Park for her lifetime commitment and notable contributions to home economics and household science in Canada. Her teaching career at the University of Toronto spanned nearly 50 years. Over decades, it evolved into one of the department's most popular and widely attended gatherings, uniting students, staff, faculty, and alumni across nutritional sciences, food science, and household science.

After a brief hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021), the lecture returned as the marquee closing event for the department's revived full-day Research Days. Notable recent speakers include experts like Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Dr. Mary L'Abbé, Dr. Eileen Kennedy and Dr. Catherine Field.

Dr. Ciaran Forde

Edna Park Speaker (2026)

Professor/Chairholder, Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands

Presentation title: "TBD"

Time: 5:00 to 6:30 pm

Venue: Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MY), Room MY 150, 55 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 0C9

Biography: Dr. Ciarán Forde leads research on how the sensory properties of foods influence calorie selection, eating behaviour and energy intake and metabolism in adults and children. In 2015 he established and led the ‘Sensory and Ingestive Behaviour’ at the Clinical Nutrition Research Center in Singapore. From mid-2021 he joined Wageningen University and Reserach as a Professor and Chair in Sensory Science and Eating Behaviour in the Division of Nutrition and Health. Dr. Forde has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters, and presented his research at over 180 national and international scientific meetings. He is currently Executive Editor for the journal Appetite, a Section Editor in ‘Nutrition Behaviour and Food Intake Regulation’ for the European Journal of Nutrition, and an Editorial Board member for Nutrition Bulletin, Journal of Future Food and Journal of Texture Studies. Dr. Forde has previously spent over 11 years in food research roles in the UK (GSK), Australia (CSIRO) and Switzerland (Nestlé Research). He received his BSc in Food Chemistry and a PhD in Sensory Science from the Dept. Nutrition at University College Cork in Ireland.