Food Protection Trends - March 2010 - 173

DR. MARIA TERESA DESTRO DR. DONALD W. SCHAFFNER r. Donald W. Schaffner is Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University. He also serves as the Director of the Center for Advanced Food Technology. His research interests include quantitative microbial risk assessment and predictive food microbiology. Dr. Schaffner has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and abstracts. He has been the recipient of more than $5 million in grants and contracts, largely in the form of competitive national grants. Dr. Schaffner has educated thousands of Food Industry professionals through numerous short courses and workshops in the United States and more than a dozen countries around the world. Dr. Schaffner was awarded the IAFP Elmer Marth Educator Award in 2009 for outstanding service to the public and IAFP in the area food safety and food protection education. He also received the Sustained Research and Impact Award in 2008 from the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and NJ Agricultural Experiment Station in recognition of research and scholarship that has provided significant contributions to his profession, and contributions that have had direct measurable impact on the communities he serves. Dr. Schaffner has served on a variety of national and international expert committees. He served on the US National Academy of Sciences Standing Committee on Use of Public Health Data in FSIS Food Safety Programs and the Committee to Review the Use of Scientific Criteria and Performance Standards for Safe Food. He chaired two expert workshops on microbial risk assessment for the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Expert reports offering guidelines for Microbial Exposure Assessment and Risk Characterization arising from those two workshops were recently published by FAO/WHO. He also served on a number of Institute of Food Technologist (IFT) expert panels working on projects for FDA including: Development and implementation of a risk-ranking framework to evaluate potential high threat microbiological agents, toxins, and chemicals in food; evaluation and definition of potentially hazardous foods; and quantification of the destruction kinetic of alternative processing technologies. Dr. Schaffner also served two terms on the US National Advisory Committee on Microbial Criteria for Foods (NACMCF), coauthoring documents on Parameters for Determining Inoculated Pack/Challenge Study Protocols and Consumer Guidelines for the Safe Cooking of Poultry Products. Dr. Schaffner is active in several scientific associations including IAFP, IFT, Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), American Society for Microbiology (ASM), and Conference for Food Protection (CFP). Dr. Schaffner is an Editor for the ASM Journal, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and serves on CFP, Council III – Science and Technology. His recent service to IAFP includes membership on the Journal of Food Protection Editorial Board, IAFP Foundation Committee, Program Committee, Organizing Committee for IAFP’s Second European Symposium on Food Safety, GMA Food Safety Award Jury and Nominating Committee. He currently serves as Vice Chairman for the IAFP Membership Committee. Dr. Schaffner holds a B.S. in Food Science from Cornell University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology from the University of Georgia. São Paulo, Brazil r. Maria Teresa Destro is an Associate Professor of Food Microbiology in the Department of Food and Experimental Nutrition at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. She earned a B.Sc. in Biological Sciences at the University of São Carlos. Her first professional experience was at an animal pre-mix production company. She later joined the Food Technology Institute (ITAL). At ITAL, she discovered the importance and beauty of food microbiology. After moving to a pharmaceutical research company, she found that food microbiology was her main interest and passion, and subsequently enrolled in the M.Sc. Program in Food Technology at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) where she began the first studies in Brazil of Listeria contamination problems in food. While pursuing her M.Sc., Dr. Destro began teaching Food Hygiene at the Catholic University of Campinas. She joined the Food Department at USP in 1989, first as a teaching assistant, and then promoted to assistant professor and lecturer in 1990. Dr. Destro obtained her Ph.D. in Food Science at USP in 1995, after developing part of her Listeria research under the supervision of Dr. Jeff Farber in Canada. She spent the year 2000 working as a Research Fellow in the Food Science Department of the University of Nottingham, England. In 2006 she received her Livre Docencia and was promoted to Associate Professor. As a professor at USP, Dr. Destro dedicates her time to three areas: teaching, research and extension. Her responsibilities as a professor are teaching food microbiology to undergraduates and studies on Gram-positive foodborne pathogens to graduate students. She also delivers regular courses at several universities in Brazil and in other South American countries. To date she has supervised several graduate students; 11 M.Sc. and 10 Ph.D. candidates. Dr. Destro’s research areas of interest are foodborne pathogens, with a special interest in Listeria monocytogenes, from detection and control to the influence of processing conditions on the virulence of the pathogen. She has served as lead investigator and collaborator in several multi-institutional projects addressing food safety and microbial risk assessment. Dr. Destro has fostered extension and outreach activities by helping micro and small food producers implement GMP, HACCP programs, and by training private and official laboratory staff in Listeria detection and enumeration. As an FAO certified HACCP instructor, she has delivered courses all over Brazil and trained over 500 food processors and government employees. She has served on several Brazilian Government committees and works at the international level with FAO, ILSI North America and PAHO. Dr. Destro joined IAFP in 1994 and has attended the association’s annual meetings since 1999. She has served as Member, Vice-Chair and Chair of the Journal of Food Protection Management Committee (2000–2008); and Vice-Chair and Chair of the Awards Committee (2007–2008). As Affiliate Council Secretary and then Affiliate Council Chair (2005–2007), she had the opportunity to join the IAFP Executive Board as the first nonNorth American member of the Board. Maria Teresa currently serves as a member of the IAFP Program Committee (2008–2011) and on the Meat and Poultry Safety and Quality PDG. Dr. Destro was responsible, together with Dr. Mariza Landgraf, for the establishment of the Brazil Association for Food Protection, the first IAFP Affiliate organization in South America. She has also acted as an ambassador for IAFP in different Latin America countries, always committed to spreading the IAFP objective: advancing food safety worldwide. In addition to IAFP, Dr. Destro has been very active in Brazilian scientific associations. She served as treasurer of the Brazilian Society of Microbiology; Director of Courses for the Brazilian Society for Food Science and Technology, and president of the Brazil Association for Food Protection. New Brunswick, New Jersey MARCH 2010 | FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS

Food Protection Trends - March 2010

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