Dr. Selina Wang
Research professor of food science at UC Davis, specialising in edible and olive oil chemistry, oxidation and authenticity.
Edible oil chemistry • olive oil quality • oxidation • food authenticity
About the expert
Focus: Edible oil chemistry and food authenticity
Selina Wang is a research professor at the University of California, Davis, where she studies edible oils, especially olive oil chemistry, oxidation and authenticity. Her research group exposed widespread adulteration and rancidity in supermarket avocado oils. She helped draft California's mandatory olive oil quality standard in 2014.
Why this matters
Wang approaches the seed-oil debate as a lipid chemist who trusts human outcome data over mechanism arguments. Her contribution is to separate three things the public conflates: the chemistry of refining, the oxidation that comes from old or reused oil, and the ultra-processed foods seed oils usually arrive in. She is strongest on measured oil composition and food fraud (her group's avocado-oil analysis) and is candid that long-term human trials on oxidized oils do not exist. She receives research funding from the Olive Oil Commission of California, which is worth knowing when olive oil is compared favourably.