Food Protection Trends - January/February 2021 - 143

Student PDG
Attendees: Minh Duong (Chair), Erika Estrada (Vice Chair), Aishwarya
Vengatesan, Alex Ham, Andrea Etter, Cameron Bardsley, Catherine
Gensler, Claire Marik, Emily Forauer, Hope Eseose, Jennifer Acuff, Jiyoon
Yi, Karuna Kharel, Katheryn Parraga, Katie Overbey, Kory Anderson,
Matt Igo, Meg Kirchner, Ramin Khaksar, Sarah Jones, Savana Everhart
Nunn, and Marina Girbal Gonzalez.
Board/Staff Present: Kali Kniel, Tamara Ford, Didi Loynachan, Dina
Siedenburg, and David Tharp.
Number of Attendees: 27.
Meeting Called to Order: 3:01 p.m. Eastern Time, Wednesday,
September 2, 2020.
Minutes Recording Secretary: Emily Forauer.
Old Business:
Student-targeted programming this year was very successful, including the mentoring program, student liaison program, and affiliate initiatives. The mentoring program pairs a student with an IAFP member with
an established career; they meet monthly to discuss topic sheets, current
events, and offer guidance to students. The 2019-2020 program had 1/5
international participants and 4/5 U.S.-based. A survey administered to
participants had a 69% response rate, with 80% of respondents rating the
program as " very enjoyable. " The student liaison program pairs an IAFP
student PDG member with a different PDG, responsibilities of the student
are primarily at the in-person annual meeting and many PDGs have given
positive feedback about this program. For the affiliate initiative from 20192020, we have added a new board position to serve as a contact point for
IAFP affiliates looking for increased student engagement. Surveys have
been administered to affiliates worldwide to determine current activity
and student involvement; more active groups offer opportunities such as
poster competitions and scholarships.
Last year at the Annual Meeting, the t-shirt fundraising sale was
very successful with 150 shirts sold. In light of circumstances surrounding
COVID-19 and the shift to an online meeting, a t-shirt sale for this year
has become logistically difficult and will not be occurring. We urge members of the PDG who would have purchased a shirt to consider making a
donation to the Foundation.
Communication with members of the SPDG occurs primarily through
an email listserv, and over the 2019-2020 year has been transitioning to a
greater presence on IAFP Connect.
This year we were able to provide fee waivers to 20 students to
attend the COVID-19 and Food Safety Global Summit.
New Business:
We hosted two speakers, Dr. Andrea Etter and Dr. Ramin Khaksar.
Dr. Etter spoke about the challenges of finding a job and forging a career
path as a young food safety professional, highlighting her successes
and setbacks in both academia and industry. Dr. Khaksar spoke about
how next generation sequencing technologies are shifting food safety,
and also mentioned some tips for success in networking. Association
president Dr. Kali Kniel encouraged students to continue to participate
in IAFP and events.
The upcoming 3-Minute Thesis competition sponsored by Merck will
be held virtually via webinar, deadline for video submissions: 9-20-2020.
There are surveys available to fill out if student members are interested in participating in the mentorship program, the liaison program, or
being connected to a local affiliate.
We are looking to transition a majority of communication with PDG
members to IAFP Connect in the upcoming year. IAFP Connect is also
where we will be hosting a virtual job board for students to access now
with the loss of an in-person job board.
The Student PDG will be hosting virtual networking events including
coffee hours, a social hour in November 2020 to present the 3-Minute
Thesis winner, small group networking events to meet prominent food
scientists, and a student presentation and discussion series.
At the 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting, the Student PDG is sponsoring
and co-sponsoring a number of sessions. We encourage members to
participate in other PDG meetings before the virtual conference and
attend these sessions. Ideas for session proposals were discussed for
the IAFP 2021 Annual Meeting. T-shirt sales will resume at the 2021
Annual Meeting, with the intention of also marketing special-edition merchandise to commemorate the Virtual Annual Meeting of 2020.

Recommendations to the Executive Board:
1. Recommend Erika Estrada for Vice Chair of the Student PDG.
2. Recommend continuation of two-hour PDG meeting length for
student group for next year's meeting.
3. Although we did not sell t-shirts this year, we had a successful
pre-sale two years ago. Once again, we would like to recommend
the Board order a larger quantity of t-shirts for the 2021 Annual
Meeting sale.
4. We were grateful for the opportunity for students to attend the
IAFP COVID-19 Food Safety Global Summit free-of-charge
through a fee-waiver. We would like to recommend similar
fee-waivers/scholarship opportunities for students to attend workshops, webinars, or other similar events.
Next Meeting Date: July 18-21 2021, Phoenix, Arizona.
Meeting Adjourned: 5:04 p.m. Eastern Time.
Chairperson: Minh Duong.

Viral and Parasitic Foodborne Disease PDG
Names of Attendees: Alexandre DaSilva (Chair), Julie Jean (Vice Chair),
Adrienne E. Shearer, Alison Lacombe, Angela Nguyen, Anna Starobin,
Candace Barnes, Carl Custer, Doug Marshall, Enrico Buenaventura,
Hediye Cinar, Jack Guzewich, Jackie Woods, James O'Donnell, Jill
Hollingsworth, Kaiping Deng, Larry R. Beuchat, Laura Ewing, Lucy
Robertson, Mauricio Durigan, Mona Kumar, Mustafa Yesil, Naim
Montazeri, Siman Liu, Sonia Almeria, Tamara Ford, Ted Gatesy, and
Phyllis Posy.
Staff Present: Didi Loynachan and Dina Siedenburg.
Number of Attendees: 30.
Meeting Called to Order: 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, Tuesday, September
29, 2020.
Minutes Recording Secretary: Julie Jean.
The meeting was called to order by Alex da Silva (Chair). Alex
introduced himself and welcomed everyone. All attendees were invited to
introduce themselves and after that Alex gave an overview of the agenda.
Old Business: The minutes from IAFP 2019 was approved with no
modifications.
Alex reviewed the 3 accepted sponsored or co-sponsored proposals
(S36: Confirmatory Tests for Non Culturable Foodborne Pathogens in
Produce for Regulatory Testing Purposes: Recent Advances and Challenges Ahead; S55: Foodborne Parasites: An Emerging Issue; and S61:
Regulatory Testing for Viruses and Parasites: The Crossroads between
Public Health and Industry).
New Business: Two main topics were on the agenda:
Update on viral foodborne diseases:
Douglas Marshall brought out the topic of the SARS-CoV2 virus (or
viral RNA) on food surfaces and food packages. The impact on export
and import of food commodities was briefly discussed as well as the
public health issues vs the trade issues. Questions were asked on the
traceability and blockchain for this viral target.
Update on foodborne parasitic diseases (Cyclosporiasis outbreaks):
Alex da Silva shared his screen showing the CDC website with
the data about 2020 cyclosporiasis outbreaks, including the number of
cases, recalls, type of commodities involved, epicurve and traceback data
which led to the collection of canal water that was tested positive for the
parasite. Mauricio Durigan added that the method used in this investigation method was published in the FDA BAM. Several other participants
(among them Jack Guzewich, Kaiping Deng, Phyllis Posy, Nese Cinar)
discussed about the origin of the contamination, the reuse of water for
irrigation, importation of products and traceback and sequencing of the
environmental compared to clinical samples.
In preparation for IAFP 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona, July 18-21, 2021,
roundtable, and symposia topics were suggested and discussed:
Challenges to link clinical to environmental samples with genetics
matching of Cyclospora was suggested by Mauricio Durigan as a potential
symposium or roundtable proposal.

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