News

by Argie Sarantinos, DEVCOM Headquarters

For Lauren Oleksyk, teaching children about food science at local schools fulfills her love of teaching. When she isn’t volunteering, she leads two teams that develop operational food rations for Soldiers, such as Meals Ready to Eat, at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center.

“When I was young, I thought I was going to be a teacher, so my interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics comes from that desire to teach. I really enjoy working with students in middle school, which is an important age before they move to high school and start thinking about careers. I’ve met many students who aren’t aware that food science is an actual major in college,” Oleksyk said.

Oleksyk has worked at DEVCOM Soldier Center for nearly 39 years, and she has been a team lead since 2009. She leads the Food Engineering and Analysis team and is acting team lead of the Functional Food and Nutritional Intervention team.

“We work on ways to make food stable, nutritious and last for three years without refrigeration, which is the shelf life requirement for MREs. Our chemists and microbiologists analyze the food to make sure it has the proper nutrients and ensure its safe to eat over time,” Oleksyk said.

Oleksyk conducts STEM workshops at local schools where she works with groups of students on food science activities. The students sample two MREs – one that is three years old and one that is fresh – and learn how to analyze the food and evaluate the differences in the two products. This is called sensory evaluation, which is a key aspect of food science. The students also work in groups to develop and build MREs. They select components, determine the nutritional profile, and learn how to package it into meal bags. Then they compete against each other to see which team can create the lightest-weight and highest calorie MRE.

Oleksyk also participates in annual STEM events, including the Blackstone Valley STEM Conference, and Science on State Street, which is held at Framingham State University, Oleksyk’s alma mater. The event features interactive activities, demonstrations, planetarium programs and discussions that focus on themes related to planet Earth, environmental science and environmental justice.

Recently, Oleksyk spent the day with a group of high school students who toured the Combat Feeding Facility at DEVCOM Soldier Center in Natick, Massachusetts.

“At the end of the day, one of the students told me that she plans to major in food science in college, which is so rewarding for me to hear. I also feel it is rewarding for students to see what a career in food science can look like by spending a day in our lab,” Oleksyk said.

“Volunteering is personally very rewarding for me. I enjoy sharing information about what I love doing and seeing how the children respond. STEM events are essential to helping us build our future workforce,” Oleksyk said.

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The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, is home to thousands of Army scientists, engineers, technicians and analysts working around the globe to leverage cutting-edge technologies and empower the American warfighter with the data and abilities to see, sense, make decisions and act faster than our adversaries – today and in the future.

As part of Army Futures Command, DEVCOM takes calculated risks to find new technological solutions each day. Our experts drive innovation, improve existing technologies and engineer solutions to technical challenges. Our work goes beyond theory to simulation and prototyping. We take potential science and technology solutions from the lab “into the dirt” for experimentation alongside Army Soldiers. DEVCOM prides itself as a global ecosystem of innovators, from world-class universities and large defense contractors, to small, minority-owned businesses and international allies and partners.