Edward Asselbergs

Edward Anton Maria Asselbergs was a Dutch-Canadian food chemist famous for inventing the modern process of producing instant mashed potato flakes.
He was raised in the Netherlands where he received his undergraduate degree, but fled to Canada with his family during the second World War. He received a master's degree from Guelph and the University of Toronto and a doctorate from Cornell. His 1955 thesis was "studies on ascorbic acid synthesis in apple leaves".
In 1960, while working for the Canadian Department of Agriculture in Ottawa, he developed a process of making instant mashed potato flakes, and filed a patent on the process. The product reached the market in 1962. Another of his inventions at the time was an infrared apple peeler.
He later worked for the Food and [Agriculture Organization] of the United Nations, moving to Italy where he became chief of the technical division, an important component of the Green Revolution. He retired in 1985.
He has 5 children, two girls and three boys.