Caitriona Andress ’17 has had a passion for science since her days at GA. She began a new role this fall as a food technologist at dsm-firmenich, where she primarily works on developing flavors for beverages. 

Bringing Flavor to Life

Andress has worked with beverages over the past four years. She shared that her team meets with clients to learn about what they want to develop and whether they’re creating something from scratch or working to match an existing flavor. They pull samples from the market to match, taste, and analyze using scientific measurements like pH or the percentage of sugar or citric acid. 

“We use these benchmarks as a starting point and do a lot of tasting,” Andress said. “I work closely with flavorists who have deep scientific knowledge of the chemistry of how flavors are made and how ingredients interact to make something taste like lemon or grapefruit in a stable liquid.”

Andress works closely with her customers in an interactive process until everyone is satisfied with the final product. 

“There’s so much to the flavor industry that people don’t know about,” Andress said. “You don’t see the flavor company listed on the finished product. This industry is not something I knew existed when I was at GA, so I love that I can show high school students a more unique career path.”

A Strong Foundation in Science

“GA does a great job of building the basic skills, from physics to biology,” said Andress. “You get a good understanding of science research because you do so many labs, and doing one double lab per rotation prepared me for college labs and how to work in those environments.”

Memories from high school science lessons have been coming back to Andress in her daily work, like pH levels or using conversions. 

“I was talking with my colleagues about how in senior year biology, Ms. Pizzino had us taste something called ‘miracle berries’ that flipped our taste sensations. After eating it, a lemon would taste sweet instead of sour. We use our sense of taste so much in our work, but we were diving into the topic in a basic level biology class!”

At Drexel University, Andress had a passion for baking, which led her to the co-op program, Culinary Arts and Sciences. In this program, the work was split between learning to cook in the kitchen and work back-of-house restaurant positions along with technical science labs. She also had the opportunity to intern at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, where she began delving into the research on the senses of taste and smell.

Advice for GA Students

“My advice to current GA students is to be open to any opportunity,” Andress said. “When I was a freshman in college, I did not think I would end up working in the flavor industry. I was thinking about applying to package goods brands like what you see in the supermarket. You don’t know what door is going to open to a path you eventually take.”

Andress loved the many opportunities she had as a GA student, and was part of many sports programs, including water polo, soccer, swimming, winter track, and lacrosse, along with participating in the Community Service Organization (CSO). 

“There are so many fun memories you can make as long as you keep your mind open and stay active in what interests you.” 

Andress is an example of how the GA experience can be so strong that it carries through into college and a career.