PORTLAND, USA – World Coffee Research (WCR) announced the recent appointment of Dr. Verônica Belchior to the position of Research Scientist for Coffee Quality Evaluation. In this role, Dr. Belchior will provide scientific expertise and technical leadership for coffee quality evaluation within WCR’s varieties-focused research and development (R&D) programs.
“This is a unique role that sits at the intersection of different scientific disciplines and involves various stakeholders, bringing the coffee quality discussion into the crop production and plant breeding end of the system,” says Dr. Tania Humphrey, Director of Research & Development, “Dr. Belchior had just the right combination of academic training, industry-facing experience, and independent entrepreneurship that we were looking for—and her excitement about the role and passion for coffee shines through. I am thrilled that she will be joining our team.”
Verônica Belchior is Research Scientist for Coffee Quality Evaluation at World Coffee Research
Dr. Belchior comes to WCR with 10 years of experience in coffee research and nearly 15 years of experience in the coffee industry overall. She holds a Ph.D. in Food Science from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), where she also served as a postdoctoral candidate and spearheaded a project to build roast profiles of coffee samples across different roasting equipment using high-tech, lab-based evaluation methods.
Most recently, Dr. Belchior—a Q-grader who has acted as a taster in coffee quality contests throughout Brazil—was an educator and consultant, leading courses on Q-Grader Preparation, Roasting Chemistry, and Coffee Extraction Kinetics worldwide. Prior to this, in 2014, she created her version of the Specialty Coffee Sensory Analysis course and taught it at the best specialty coffee shops and roasters across the country. Even further, she was a partner in the Coffee Sensorium Project.
Dr. Belchior will act as a liaison between industry, external research collaborators and WCR’s plant breeders, agronomists, and program staff to ensure coffee quality is an integral component of the organization’s program design and variety evaluation processes. Her work will be central to the primary goal of addressing coffee quality on a global scale to support breeding programs in many of the world’s coffee origins.
“I am looking forward to supporting the research necessary to achieve high quality standards in WCR’s breeding initiatives and trials,” says Belchior. “I’m excited to be part of the team that’s forging the future of coffee and discovering what’s possible for our industry”.
