The Business of Alt Protein: Unlocking potential through sensory and consumer research

President/Chief, Sensory Intelligence, Dragonfly SCI

Bleibaum has over 30 years of experience in applying sensory and consumer research with major multinational businesses. She spent most of her career at Tragon Corporation, under the guidance of Dr. Herbert Stone & Joel L. Sidel’s, as their first student intern, and then left as their Chief Sensory Officer. In 2017, she co-founded Dragonfly SCI, Inc., with fellow researchers, creating a sensory and consumer science consultancy organization. Dragonfly SCI’s mission is to help companies utilize sensory measurement data for innovation, new product development, and product improvements, among many others.

She is a co-developer and instructor of UC Davis Extension’s popular and long-running “Applied Sensory & Consumer Science”. In 2016, she was awarded the prestigious UC Davis Extension Outstanding Service Award for her contributions and dedication to the University’s continuing education program. Bleibaum is co-author of Sensory Evaluation Practices, Fifth Edition (2021), A Practical Guide to Comparative Advertising: Dare-to-Compare (2019), and editor of ASTM International, Manual 13, Second Edition on Descriptive Analysis (2020). She is chair-elect of UC Davis’s Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Leadership board, the past Chair for ASTM E-18 on Sensory Evaluation, past E-18 chair on Communication and Training, 2010 Society of Sensory Professionals Conference Chair, past Secretary of SSP, Professional member of IFT and the IFT Sensory and Consumer Sciences Division. Bleibaum earned her B.S. from U.C. Davis, under the guidance of Rose Marie Pangborn and Dr. Howard Schutz, and her M.A. in Physiological Psychology and Psychophysics from Washington University, specializing in Consumer Behavior.