John C. Castura, MSc
Research Fellow
John Castura holds the position of Research Fellow at Compusense Inc. His research interests include sensory method development and evaluation, including rapid and efficient sensory methods, temporal sensory methods, sensory discrimination testing, and sensometric applications. His academic background includes a specialized undergraduate degree in Zoology (University of Guelph), an undergraduate certificate in Computing & Information Systems (Athabasca University), a graduate certificate in applied Statistics (Colorado State University), and a Master of Science degree in Applied Statistics (University of Guelph).
John developed a taste for sensory evaluation as a trained Scotch whisky panelist on a descriptive sensory panel. He now has more than 20 years’ experience in the field, and is an increasingly active contributor. He has more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. He has given numerous oral and poster presentations at scientific meetings, as well as invited talks, seminars, and tutorials.
John performs reviews for several peer-reviewed journals and serves on the Food Quality and Preference editorial board. He chairs the Canadian ISO/TC 34/SC 12 Sensory Analysis committee and the Campden BRI (UK) Sensory and Consumer Member Interest Group. He is active in ASTM Committee E18 Sensory Evaluation, where he chairs the Sensory Claim Substantiation taskgroup. He is a member of ASTM Committee E11 Quality and Statistics. He is a GStat-accredited member of the American Statistical Association and a premier member of the Institute of Food Technologists. Previously, he served as Member At Large on the Society of Sensory Professionals Executive Committee 2014-2016 and was the Chair (2016-2020) and Vice-Chair (2010-2014) of the Sensometric Society. He has served on various scientific committees and was the Scientific Committee chair of the Sensometrics 2014 meeting.