Biosketch
Danielle Froio-Blumsack is a Materials Engineer with the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Solider Center, Natick, MA, working on the Food Protection and Innovative Packaging Team in the Combat Feeding Directorate. Froio-Blumsack has worked on numerous projects focusing on the development of high barrier materials, polymer processing, composites, barrier coatings, and machine direction orientation in an effort to develop packaging materials that reduce weight and meet the stringent barrier and durability requirements for operational ration packaging, such as the Meal, Ready-to-Eat. She also works with NASA developing and evaluating packaging materials that are compatible with alternative quality-preserving sterilization processes. Froio-Blumsack has experience in the area of oxygen and water vapor permeability testing of films and fabricated pouches, and is currently working on a project evaluating the permeability of ration packaging to chemical threats. She has also worked in the area of microencapsulation, and studied the effect of extrusion processing and polymer matrix on the survivability and release properties of encapsulated natural insect repellents.