In October 1995, Virginia H. Holsinger received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Women in Science & Engineering, presented by the National Science Foundation. Holsinger received a B.S. in chemistry from the College of William & Mary in 1958 and a Ph.D. in food science and nutrition from Ohio State University in 1980.

She began her research career as an analytical chemist with the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service Dairy Products Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Then, in 1974, she transferred to USDA’s Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, Pa., where she led a program on the chemistry and technology of milk and dairy foods until her retirement in 1999.

While at the USDA, Holsinger developed a whey-soy drink mix that was shelf-stable enough to serve as a milk replacement in international food donation programs. She was also part of the team that demonstrated that adding the enzyme lactase to milk could make it more digestible by lactose-intolerant people by breaking the disaccharide into galactose and glucose. This work led to the commercialization of products such as Lactaid.