Michelle Yoo

Michelle Ji Yeon Yoo is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology, specialising in food digestibility and the development of value-added foods.

Academic career
Yoo completed a Bachelor of Technology in Biotechnology with honours at the University of Auckland, and then followed this with a PhD titled Development and application of an in vitro physicochemical upper gastrointestinal system (IPUGS) simulating the human digestive processes at Monash University. Her research was supervised by Xiao Dong Chen. Yoo completed postdoctoral research at Massey University before joining the faculty of the Auckland University of Technology in 2012. She was appointed to associate professor in 2021 and full professor in 2024.

Yoo is a Auckland University of Technology food science programme leader and Deputy Head of Research for the School of Science. She is also an associate investigator in the Riddet Institute, a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence focusing on 'fundamental and strategic scientific research in food'.

Yoo's research focuses on digestibility of foods, which she examines using the in vitro digestion model developed during her doctoral studies. She investigates how foods such as meat and seafood are broken down during digestion, and how they can be processed to make them more digestible. Yoo is also interested in value-added foods, such as dairy products and gluten-free products with added bioactives, and has worked with AgResearch scientists on dry-ageing of lamb and beef products.