Byproduct research his passion

An American professor is back for his annual summer "battery charge", Grant Miller writes.

A snowstorm transformed a 30-minute drive home from Ohio State University into a two-hour ordeal for Professor Jim Harper.

When he walked into the kitchen, the phone was ringing.

New Zealand scientist Kevin Marshall was on the other end of the line.

"That phone call changed my life," Prof Harper says.

Asked if he wanted to come to New Zealand for a year, Prof Harper wasted no time in taking up the opportunity.

One year turned into five.

Then Prof Harper developed a habit of living in the United States for nine months of the year and staying in New Zealand for three months – in our summer.

The 86-year-old – back in Palmerston North to carry out food research at Massey University – last experienced a northern hemisphere winter in 1980.

He calls his annual summer pilgrimage "a battery charge".

But he is also here to work.

"Avoiding the winter is a bonus," he says.

"I'm here because of the research. As long as what I'm doing is useful, I'll continue to do it."

What Prof Harper is doing is gathering published research on how fish and meat waste could be used as byproducts instead of being tossed out. The hope is that this will form the basis for research to generate more nutritional products for people.

His first job in New Zealand was in 1981 at the Dairy Research Institute in Palmerston North.

One of the great challenges at the time was figuring out a way to make whey – a dairy byproduct – useful.

Disposal of whey was a major problem because of its effects on waterways.

"The dairy industry was getting bigger and factories were larger," Prof Harper says.

He was employed to help develop a whey products industry.

That development took a long time, he says, but whey protein and milk protein concentrate are now a billion-dollar industry.

"The protein in whey is very valuable, but very dilute. What was required was a method of concentration."

Prof Harper says the project brought together all the disciplines that make up food science. It became a model for integration of research.

After five years in New Zealand, Prof Harper and his wife decided to go home to the US because they wanted to spend time with their grandchildren.

Prof Harper did some consultancy work and teaching there, but his connections with New Zealand remained strong and he kept coming back.

His most recent food science work has been at the Riddet Institute, Massey.

Research is "sort of like doing a detective story", he says.

"I don't have to work, but I'm still working because it's fun."

With modern communications, keeping things organised at home in the US is easy, he says. After his first wife died, he remarried in 2007.

Prof Harper says they will continue to come out to New Zealand for as long as their health allows.

Positive comments from students help him keep going, he says.

- © Fairfax NZ News