Food Protection Trends - March/April 2013 - (Page 106)

Name: Ann Draughon Employment: University of Tennessee Location: Knoxville, TN IAFP Member: 39 years Baseball, Music and Food Science The end of baseball season has always been a sad time for fans, including longtime IAFP member Ann Draughon. This past season, however, has been one of the saddest as she watched her beloved New York Yankees lose the playoffs to the Detroit Tigers. with the season officially over in Ann’s mind, she will have to wait for a February trip to spring training for her next “baseball fix.” How did an emeritus professor of food science from the University of Tennessee, who was raised in west Virginia and educated in Tennessee and Georgia, become a diehard Yankees fan? “It’s all hereditary,” says Ann. As a young girl, she would spend summer evenings on the porch of the family home listening to play-by-play broadcasts of her grandfather’s favorite baseball team — the New York Yankees. Ann also inherited something from her mother that has been valuable throughout her career — a love of music. Music Lessons for Microbiologists “My mother played guitar, and music filled the air as a child,” explains Ann, who received a music scholarship to attend the University of Tennessee. Eventually, she had to give up the scholarship when her studies in microbiology consumed more and more of her time. However, Ann admits that her music education helped prepare her for hours of studying and a rewarding career as a researcher and professor. “Music requires discipline and focus, two important traits that helped me throughout school,” Ann explains. “Music also inspires you to reach inside yourself and make intuitive leaps beyond the obvious, and that’s a key element of good research,” she adds. 106 FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS MARCH–APRIL 2013 As you can probably guess, if Ann had not developed a keen interest in biology, she would have become a musician. She was originally interested in medicine when she enrolled at the University of Tennessee in the late 1960s, but a part-time job at a hospital quickly put an end to that career choice. An advisor who taught in the food science department introduced Ann to the world of food microbiology. “I immediately became fascinated with how I could play a role in making foods safer.” According to Ann, food microbiology was a relatively new and much needed field of study at the time, and there seemed to be numerous opportunities for women. She was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of those opportunities. Seizing the Opportunity After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Ann went on to earn a doctorate degree in food science with a major in food microbiology from the University of Georgia. In the final months of her doctoral program, she was offered a teaching job at the University of Tennessee, where she went on to establish the Food Safety Center of Excellence, a facility that brings together researchers from various disciplines to solve complex food safety issues. She recently retired from university life and now keeps busy teaching homeland security classes, developing webinars and helping food companies with their food disaster recovery programs. Ann joined the International Association for Food Protection after she began working in the area of microbiology. “I loved it from the start,” she remembers. “The excellence of the science and the family atmosphere made the association a nurturing environment for a young scientist like me.” In 1995, she became the first woman president of IAFP. “Those were transition years for IAFP, and I was

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - March/April 2013

Food Protection Trends - March/April 2013
Contents
COMMENTARY
Predictors of Eating Raw or Undercooked Meat , Poultry , Seafood, and Eggs among Older Adults
Chemical Decontamination of Footwear Soles
“...Melamine-associated Nephrotoxic Renal Failure Outbreak among Pets...”
A How-to Guide to Develop and Conduct Validations
BEYOND THE BIO
SPECIAL INTEREST PAPER
general fund statement
PDG HIGHLIGHT
INDUSTRY PRODUCTS
COMING EVENTS

Food Protection Trends - March/April 2013