Safeguarding the Food Supply: Integrating Diverse Risks, Connecting with Consumers, and Protecting Vulnerable Populations: Proceedings of a Workshop (2025)
Chapter: Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers and Planning Committee Members
Appendix B
Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers and Planning Committee Members
Kellie M. Casavale, Ph.D., R.D.N., is the senior science advisor for Nutrition in the Office of Analytics and Outreach in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). She supports cross-center and cross-departmental collaborations, particularly those related to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Closer to Zero, and maternal and child populations. She has led in the Dietary Guidelines process through roles at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, and now FDA. She supported the development of the first dietary patterns for children under 2 years with the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. Other leadership roles include the U.S. Federal Data Consortium on Pregnancy and Birth to 24 Months, the Human Milk Composition Initiative in the U.S. and Canada, and maternal and child health projects in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. She contributes leadership for Closer to Zero and the FDA/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Fish Advice, elucidating the ways nutrition can reduce the adverse developmental effects of potential exposures to environmental chemical contaminants from food. Dr. Casavale has a B.S. in biology from Lander University and a Ph.D. in nutrition science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is a Registered Dietitian.
Benjamin (Ben) Chapman, Ph.D., M.S., is department head of Agricultural and Human Sciences, professor, and director of the Safe Plates food safety extension and research program at North Carolina State University. Dr.
Chapman is the co-chair of STOP Foodborne Illness board of directors, an advocacy group for individuals affected by foodborne pathogens. He also co-hosts two podcasts, Food Safety Talk and Risky or Not. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in plant agriculture and food safety from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Kimberly L. Cook, Ph.D., M.S., is a national program leader (NPL) for Food Safety with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service Office (ARS) of National Programs in Beltsville, Maryland. She has been with ARS for 20 years as a research microbiologist, research leader, and NPL. According to Scopus, she has 83 publications, over 2,000 citations, and an h-index of 30. Dr. Cook’s personal food safety research has been dedicated to the study of new and emerging food safety contaminants to solve agricultural issues that pose risks to animals, humans, and the environment. She has been an NPL for the ARS Food Safety National Program for 5 years. She also oversees antimicrobial resistance research, serves on the USDA Emerging Infectious Disease Committee, oversees ARS Grand Challenge projects focused on Integrated Food Safety Approaches to Reduce Salmonella and on Insects as Animal Feed, and serves as ARS lead on many national and international interagency working groups focused on food safety and antimicrobial resistance priorities of critical importance to agriculture and food safety.
Sharmi Das, M.H.S., joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013 and is the director of the Division of Education, Outreach and Information in FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). She oversees consumer education, web and social media activities, and the Food and Cosmetic Information Center in CFSAN. Ms. Das has 30 years of experience in county and state health departments, nonprofits, and national organizations developing, implementing, and evaluating public health programs; developing policies, regulations, and legislation; and building strategic partnerships. She holds a B.S. in biology from Osmania University, India, and an M.H.S. from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
De Ann Davis, Ph.D., is senior vice president, Science, for the Western Growers Association (Western Growers). The Science division leads the association’s engagement in several areas, including food safety, environment, sustainability, and data science. Dr. Davis has extensive leadership experience in the development and execution of technical global programs in areas of product safety, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. Following an impressive 20-year run with consumer-packaged goods companies, such as Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark, Dr. Davis transitioned to packaged food and fresh produce safety over a decade ago.
Prior to Western Growers, she served as vice president of Food Safety and Quality for both Church Brothers Farms and Earthbound Farm. Dr. Davis also served as chief food safety officer for Kraft Foods Group, where she was heavily engaged in industry’s response to the regulatory framework of the Food Safety Modernization Act. She was a certified Diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology from 1996 to 2021. Dr. Davis currently holds several committee and board appointments representing the produce industry and recently completed two terms on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food. Dr. Davis earned her B.A. in biology and chemistry from Point Loma Nazarene University and her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Texas A&M University.
Eric A. Decker, Ph.D., is professor at the Department of Food Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has also been the director of the UMass Food Science Industry Strategic Research Alliance since 2008. Dr. Decker is actively conducting research to characterize mechanisms of lipid oxidation, antioxidant protection of foods, and the health implications of bioactive lipids. He has over 430 publications, and he has been listed as one of the Most Highly Cited Scientists in Agriculture since 2005. Dr. Decker has served on numerous committees for institutions such as the Food and Drug Administration; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Institute of Food Technologists; U.S. Department of Agriculture; and the American Heart Association. He has received recognition for his research and service from the American Oil Chemist Society, Agriculture and Food Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, Institute of Food Technologists, University of Massachusetts, and the University of Kentucky. Dr. Decker has also been elected to serve as an officer for the American Meat Science Association, Institute of Food Technologists, and most recently, as the president of the American Oil Chemist Society. He holds an M.S. in food science and nutrition from Washington State University and a Ph.D. in food science and nutrition from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, Ph.D., M.S., has served as director of the Center for Food Safety and professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Georgia, since 2016. In 1999, he joined the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota, where he worked as assistant, associate, and full professor in Food Safety Microbiology, and he served as department head from 2014 to 2016. He has authored 104 peer-review articles and 13 book chapters. He directs research on ecology, control, and detection of foodborne bacteria in different food commodities. He was a member of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. Dr. Diez-Gonzalez serves on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Board of Scientific Counselors’ Food Safety Modernization Act Surveillance Working Group and the Global Food Safety Initiative Science and Technology Advisory Group. In 2022, he was part of the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s Independent Expert Panel that conducted a review of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the International Association for Food Protection. He was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on risk ranking. Dr. Diez-Gonzalez graduated with a B.S. in food science from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in food science from Cornell University.
Emily Dimiero, M.S., is director of Federal Government Relations at Cargill, where she leads nutrition and food policy. She previously worked at Nestle in Corporate and Government Affairs and Corporate Communications. Prior to entering the food industry, she worked in international development supporting the implementation of agriculture, nutrition and public health programs. Ms. Dimiero holds a B.A. in government and Spanish from Hamilton College, and a M.S. in nutrition with a focus on agriculture, food, and environment from the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Gary Ginsberg, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Environmental Health, New York State Department of Health, and is a clinical professor at the Yale School of Public Health. He has served on a range of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Academies panels and has provided reviews for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is currently the chair of the External Advisory Committee for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund grant at the University of Rhode Island on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. His risk assessments on fish contaminants, synthetic turf fields, house dust, and risks pertaining to vulnerable populations have been published in peer-reviewed journals. He received his Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of Connecticut.
Lawrence D. Goodridge, Ph.D., M.Sc., is a full professor and Canada Research Chair in Foodborne Pathogen Dynamics in the Department of Food Science at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He is also the director of Guelph’s Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety. Dr. Goodridge applies genomics to study foodborne bacterial pathogens and antibiotic resistance within a One Health context. His expertise in food safety and public health has led to international collaborations with the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Bank on food safety-related initiatives. Dr. Goodridge has been awarded awards for his commitment to teaching and research including a North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture Charles N. Shepardson Meritorious Teaching Award in 2012, the Elmer Marth Educator Award from the International Association of Food Protection in 2022, and a research and Innovation award from the Canadian Black Scientists Network in 2022. He completed a B.Sc. in microbiology at the University of Guelph, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in food science with an emphasis on food microbiology, also at Guelph, before completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.
Kerry A. Hamilton, Ph.D., M.H.S., is an associate professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment with a joint appointment in the Biodesign Institute Center for Environmental Health Engineering at Arizona State University. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Australia and Public Health Fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her research focuses on assessing and reducing health risks from pathogens transmitted by environmental exposures. She received her M.H.S. in environmental and occupational hygiene from Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Drexel University.
John (Chuck) Hassenplug, M.Sc., is currently a senior policy analyst in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Human Food Program, Office of Surveillance Strategy & Risk Prioritization. He leads modeling and analysis work to support risk-informed resource allocation of FDA’s food safety program. Since joining FDA in 2007, he has held positions evaluating FDA’s regulatory programs and as a division director overseeing the agency’s annual field work plan. Prior to joining FDA, Mr. Hassenplug served as an analyst with the World Food Programme in Rome. He has a B.Sc. in bioengineering and an M.Sc. in international health care management, economics, and policy.
Arie H. Havelaar, Ph.D., M.Sc., is a preeminent professor of global food safety and zoonoses in the Animal Sciences Department, the Emerging Pathogens Institute, and the Global Food Systems Institute of the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is an honorary professor at Haramaya University in Ethiopia. Before moving to the United States in 2014, Dr. Havelaar worked at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands, in various scientific and management roles, most recently as principal scientist in the Center for Zoonoses and Environmental Microbiology. He is an emeritus professor of Microbial Risk Assessment at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences of the Faculty
of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. His research focuses on epidemiology and risk assessment of foodborne and zoonotic diseases and their prevention in the United States and globally. He has published extensively on the global burden of foodborne disease, including in his role as chair of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group, currently serving as consultant to WHO to support the process of updating these estimates. He contributes to the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems and several projects focusing on food safety and zoonotic infections in low- and middle-income countries, as well as in the United States. His current research is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Department for International Development, the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Arie holds an M.Sc. in chemical engineering with a major in microbiology from the Delft University of Technology, a Ph.D. in microbiology from Utrecht University, and an M.Sc. in epidemiology from the Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences at the Erasmus University, all in the Netherlands.
Julie Herbstman, Ph.D., is professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, and director of the Certificate Program in Molecular Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Her research evaluates the associations between prenatal and early life environmental exposures and childhood health outcomes primarily using longitudinal birth cohort studies. She also studies the impact of environmental exposures on women’s health throughout the life course. Dr. Herbstman directs the ongoing recruitment and follow-up of pregnant individuals and their children in urban neighborhoods within New York City to identify sources of urban pollutants and their effects on growth and development. She has studied the impacts of exposure to organic compounds, including polybrominated diphenyl ethers, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, poly-chlorinated biphenyls, environmental phenols, phthalates, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Her research incorporates biomarkers of exposure and effect, including epigenetic measures. Dr. Herbstman received a Ph.D. in environmental epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University and completed postdoctoral training in environmental health sciences at Columbia University.
Margaret R. Karagas, Ph.D., is the James W. Squires Professor and founding chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College and director of its Center for Molecular Epidemiology. Her work seeks to identify emerging environmental exposures, host factors, and mechanisms that affect health from infancy to adult life, and
to apply novel methods and technologies to understand disease pathogenesis. Among her current investigations is a rural cohort study of pregnant women and their offspring in northern New England designed to investigate dietary sources of nutrients and toxicants, and their impacts on childhood infection, allergy/atopy, growth, and neurodevelopment. Her collaborative studies examine a broad range of exposure biomarkers, individual susceptibility, and biological response to environmental agents including the developing microbiome and immune response. She further participates in consortium studies including the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) study, and has served on international consensus panels (e.g., for the International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph Program and European Food Safety Authority Scientific Opinions) and expert committees (e.g., for U.S. National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). She received her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Washington.
Janell R. Kause, M.P.H., M.P.P., is scientific advisor for risk assessment for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ms. Kause guides FSIS’ data-driven, science-led approaches to inform federal food safety standard setting, improve laboratory testing, focus consumer outreach, and optimize federal inspection systems. She leads the advancement of quantitative microbiological risk assessments (QMRA), risk prioritization algorithms, and risk–benefit analyses to inform federal food safety decisions. She provided strategic leadership for the development of risk-analytics to enhance inspection for Listeria monocytogenes in deli meats, improve biosecurity measures for highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry, set standards for Salmonella in meat and poultry products, and guide risk foresight systems to identify and respond to emerging foodborne threats. She served on World Health Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and World Trade Organization committees to advance international guidance for food safety risk assessment, risk communication, and risk conformance. She serves as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods to address a wide range of food safety issues, including setting microbiological criteria for Salmonella in poultry, exploring the science to mitigate infant illnesses from Cronobacter, and incorporating advanced analytics and genomics in QMRA to enhance decision support for federal food safety policies and inspection programs. Ms. Kause holds a dual M.P.H. and M.P.P. from the University of Michigan in environmental health and risk policy.
Barbara Kowalcyk, Ph.D., M.A., is associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences and director of the Institute for
Food Safety and Nutrition Security at the George Washington University. Dr. Kowalcyk’s research spans a range of topics related to food safety and infectious foodborne disease, including their intersection with nutrition security. She is particularly interested in advancing systems-based approaches to food safety that have a strong focus on disease prevention; consider the connections between human, animal, and environmental health (i.e., One Health); and promote evidence-based decisions from farm to fork to physician. She has extensively used epidemiologic methods, data analytics, and risk analysis to assess food safety risks and potential intervention strategies in both the United States and the global south. She has led multiple innovative, collaborative, and large-scale research projects funded by, among others, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom Food and Commonwealth Development Office, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She has an M.A. in statistics from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Ph.D. in environmental health epidemiology from the University of Cincinnati.
Cory Lindgren, Ph.D., currently works with the Advanced Data Analytics and Risk Modelling team in the Food Safety Science Branch at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and has worked for the CFIA since May 2006. During his time with the CFIA, he has worked in the Programs and Policy Branch, Operations Branch, and Science Branch, where he has acquired extensive experience in risk assessment and risk analysis. Dr. Lindgren has a Ph.D. in predictive spatial modelling from the University of Manitoba.
Joanna MacEwan, Ph.D., is an executive director of Evidence Strategy at Genesis Research Group. Dr. MacEwan brings more than 15 years of experience in scientific research and more than 10 years of experience focused on evidence generation to support health economics and outcomes research, as well as regulatory, market access, and marketing aspects of life science assets for the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies. She is a health economist specializing in applied econometric analysis and has presented and published peer-reviewed work on disease areas including oncology, diabetes, obesity, mental illness, and cardiovascular disease, as well as nutrition policy. Prior to joining Genesis Research, Dr. MacEwan spent 8 years consulting to life sciences companies with PRECISIONheor, in addition to her time as a regulatory economist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. She holds a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Davis.
Keeve E. Nachman, Ph.D., M.H.S., is the Robert S. Lawrence Professor and associate chair of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he codirects the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute and serves as associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Dr. Nachman has rigorous training and extensive practical experience in the risk sciences, regulatory toxicology, exposure science, epidemiology, occupational and environmental health, and environmental policy and communication. He has over 20 years of experience in the field of public health, with experience working in two federal agencies (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] and U.S. Department of Defense [DoD]/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) on issues related to toxicology, epidemiology, exposure science, and risk assessment. Dr. Nachman’s research is funded by EPA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health, and foundations. He has active projects focused on the development of novel methods to quantify infants’ and children’s soil and dust exposures, the prioritization of novel contaminants in human biosolids, and the development of occupational exposure factors in the agriculture sector. He has served on several National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees (DoD occupational standard for trichloroethylene, East Palestine train derailment research and surveillance priorities, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s risk evaluation of ethylene oxide [current]). He earned his M.H.S. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Haley F. Oliver, Ph.D., is the 150th Anniversary professor, interim vice provost for graduate and postdoctoral scholars, and the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Feed the Future Food Safety Innovation Lab. As director of the Food Safety Innovation Lab, she develops and oversees USAID’s food safety research portfolio currently implemented in Senegal, Kenya, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nigeria, and Nepal. She has over 10 years of food security field experience in low- and middle-income economies. Dr. Oliver’s domestic research focuses on foodborne pathogens in emerging food systems (e.g., cellular agriculture) with an emphasis on practical and feasible control strategies. Throughout her tenure, she has taught food microbiology, food safety, sanitation, and related subjects. She is deeply committed to active learning and has worked tirelessly to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion in her classroom and research programs. She has received the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities John Morrill Award, Purdue University Carine Alexander Spirit of the Land-Grant award, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Agriculture Science Excellence in Teaching Regional Career Award, the Charles B. Murphy Teaching Award, and the International Association for Food Protection James M. Jay Diversity in Food
Award. She completed her B.S. in molecular biology and in microbiology at the University of Wyoming and received her Ph.D. in food science, with minors in epidemiology and microbiology, at Cornell University.
Salomon Sand, Ph.D., is risk assessor at the Swedish Food Agency (SFA), Uppsala, Sweden. He is an expert in the field of quantitative chemical risk assessment, including the benchmark dose method. Dr. Sand coordinates work related to the development of risk analytical methods at the Department of Risk and Benefit Assessment. This area of operation across units at the department aims to provide better access to relevant data and fit-for-purpose computational tools for assessing risks, benefits, and/or combined risk–benefit. Being part of the department’s Unit of Toxicology, he also provides scientific support and conducts risk assessments, in response to requests from risk management sectors at SFA. Dr. Sand is an expert at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) where he has been a member of the EFSA panel on contaminants in the food chain since 2018. At EFSA, he has also been part of the EFSA Scientific Committee working groups on the benchmark dose method, risk–benefit assessment, and uncertainty analysis. Dr. Sand has been a visiting scientist at the University of Ottawa, Canada, since 2007. His research has been published in scientific journals in the areas of risk analysis, toxicology, and environmental sciences.
Robert L. Scharff, Ph.D., J.D., is an economist who has spent over 2 decades researching the economics of food and health. As professor in the Department of Human Sciences at The Ohio State University (OSU), he has focused his food safety research on estimating the economic burden of illness, evaluating interventions, and studying consumer and industry behavior in the marketplace. Dr. Scharff serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Food Protection and Journal of Consumer Affairs. As part of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, he has an active U.S. Department of Agriculture Hatch project focused on the economics of foodborne illness and is involved in several multistate and international research collaborations. Prior to working at OSU, Dr. Scharff earned a Ph.D. in economics from Duke University and a J.D. from George Mason University, and was a regulatory economist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Kris Sollid, R.D., is senior director, research and consumer insights, at the International Food Information Council (IFIC), which includes its signature annual Food & Health Survey and other topic-specific consumer research projects. In this role, he develops creative strategies for conducting IFIC’s qualitative and quantitative consumer studies and disseminating insights to a wide variety of food and nutrition professionals via national and global platforms and publications. He is a registered dietitian with a
passion for understanding public perceptions of food and nutrition and analyzing how these perceptions align with scientific literature. He is an active member of multiple food-focused professional societies, including the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American Society for Nutrition, and the Institute of Food Technologists. Dr. Sollid has earned degrees from the University of Colorado, Boulder (B.A. in geography), and the University of Maryland, College Park (B.S. in dietetics).
Stéphane Vidry, Ph.D., M.S., is global executive director of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) and executive director of ILSI U.S. and Canada, headquartered in Washington, DC. Prior to that, Dr. Vidry worked for ILSI Europe, the European Commission Joint Research Center and the international dairy company Lactalis, and taught at the University of Montpellier, France. He has expertise in food safety and nutrition. He coordinated the European Commission-funded project BRAFO (Benefit Risk Analysis for Foods) and currently leads the ILSI U.S. and Canada Risk Assessment of Cultivated Food Products focused area. As global executive director of ILSI, he also overlooks the ILSI Federation (10 Institutes around the world) scientific portfolio addressing food safety, nutrition, and sustainability. Dr. Vidry holds a B.Sc. in cellular and molecular biochemistry and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in food sciences from the University of Montpellier, France.
Francisco J. Zagmutt, Ph.D., D.V.M., M.P.V.M., is a managing director at EpiX Analytics, where he uses risk modeling and analytics methods to inform key decisions under uncertainty. He is also affiliate faculty at Colorado State University, a former member of the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods, and a current member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. Dr. Zagmutt is also a full member of Sigma Xi and serves as an expert advisor to the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Expert Meetings on Microbial Risk Assessment. He holds a veterinary degree from the University of Chile, a master’s degree from University of California, Davis, and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University.
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