Jeffrey Bjorklund

Jeff Bjorklund is an organic chemist who grew up and completed his schooling in Minnesota.  From there, he spent two years doing post-doctoral research in natural product biosynthesis at the University of Washington in Seattle and then moved into industrial research and new product development at Aldrich Chemical Company in Milwaukee.  His desire to teach and mentor undergraduate research finally brought him to North Central College where he now teaches both general and organic chemistry courses.

Dr Bjorklund's research exploits the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to better understand food chemistry and fermentation processes.  Students working with him have genetically altered yeast and quantitated the difference in the chemical profile of beer brewed with the altered yeast relative to the wild type.  They also are investigating the Maillard reaction which is responsible for the browning observed in cooked foods as well as the generation of many important flavor and aroma compounds.

Selected Scholarship

Statistical analysis of tobacco for country of origin via ¹H-NMR spectroscopy and principle component analysis
Desury Paredes, Cory McCleave, Jeffrey Bjorklund, Nancy Peterson
North Central College, Department of Chemistry, Naperville, Illinois, United States
Poster presentation at the American Chemical Society National Meeting, Boston MA, August 2015.

A Novel Method of Analyzing Free Fatty Acid Content in Triacylglycerol Mixtures using ¹H-NMR
Brett Breshears, Robert Oberschneider, Nancy Peterson, Jeffrey Bjorklund
Proceedings of the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2015, Eastern Washington University.