High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Charles Olin Ball (1893–1970) was an American food scientist and inventor who was involved in the thermal death time studies in the food canning industry during the early 1920s. This research would be used as standard by the United States Food and Drug Administration for calculating thermal processes in canning. He was also a charter member of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) in 1939 and inducted among the first class of IFT fellows in 1970 for his work in academia and industry.