Velitchka Gotcheva

Dr. Velitchka Gotcheva is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biotechnology and the Head of the Center for Food Quality and Safety, University of Food Technology (UFT) in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. She is also a part-time lecturer at the University of Western Macedonia, Greece. Her main fields of expertise include food technology, food biotechnology, food microbiology, molecular biology, functional foods, microbiological control of foods, food quality and safety management and auditing (incl. good manufacturing practice, HACCP systems, ISO and FSSC standards), authenticity in the agro-food chain, food legislation and food labelling, e-learning.

Dr. Gotcheva has been awarded several fellowships for specializations in food microbiology, food biotechnology and molecular methods, proteomics, quality and safety management, and e-learning. Dr. Gotcheva has participated in more than 30 national and international research and networking projects projects under FP6, FP7 and FP8 programmes, HORIZON EUROPE, COST, TEMPUS, ERASMUS, the European Science Foundation, Leonardo Da Vinci, as well as in projects funded by international bilateral programmes.

Dr. Gotcheva is a member of various expert groups, committees and professional networks in the agri-food and educational systems. She is a member of the Standing Expert Committee on Agricultural Sciences of the National Science Fund (NSF) of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science and was also a member of temporary expert committees of the NSF. Since 2016, she is the national representative of Bulgaria at the ISEKI Food Association (IFA) with two years being a member of IFA’s Managing Board. Dr. Gotcheva is also a member of the Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI). She actively interacts with various stakeholders in the agri-food and biotechnology area to promote knowledge and expertise transfer and dialogues on need and policies.