Ranjith Ramanathan

Dr. Ranjith Ramanathan is a Professor of Meat/Food Science holding Leo & Kathy Noltensmeyer Endowed Research Chair in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Ramanathan received his Ph.D. and MS in Animal Science from the University of Connecticut in 2012. He earned his Bachelor of Veterinary and Animal Science in 2004 from Kerala Agricultural University, India. Since 2012, he has been a faculty in the Department of Animal Science at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Ramanathan's research focuses on fundamental and applied factors that influence fresh meat quality, specifically postmortem biochemistry and meat color. Dr. Ramanathan has secured a total of $7.3 million in research grants. In addition, he has published 101 peer-reviewed journal articles and 180 refereed abstracts. Dr. Ramanathan has mentored 19 graduate students as a chair, served on 54 MS/Ph.D. committees as a member, and mentored 32 undergraduate research scholars. Dr. Ramanathan has given 46 invited talks in 12 states and 4 countries. He also teaches four food science courses. He has been recognized by the American Society of Animal Science, the United States Department of Agriculture-Association of Public Land Grant University, the American Meat Science Association, the American Chemical Society, and NACTA for his teaching and research excellence.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=w71efTQAAAAJ
CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YbInvIXBPe0xZTzo8TuT_-HQsYPnW_lR/view?usp=sharing

Research Interests:

Ramanathan's overall research goals are to minimize economic and animal protein losses due to meat discoloration, enhance value to producers, address challenges of producers/industry, train next-generation animal scientists, and contribute to the establishment of a sustainable food system.

- Application of metabolomics to better understand meat quality changes
- Use of Artificial Intelligence techniques in meat quality research
- Understanding the mechanism of failure to bloom in dark-cutting beef
- Myoglobin chemistry to understand metmyoglobin reducing activity and bloom
- Cooked color defect
- Role of mitochondria in beef color
- Myoglobin and lipid oxidation
- Antioxidants on mitochondrial function
- Develop novel tools to study meat color
- Food sustainability