IAFP Announces 2015 Student Travel Scholarship Recipients

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Des Moines, Iowa– The International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) will present Student Travel Scholarships to the following individuals at IAFP 2015, July 25–28, in Portland, Oregon. Sponsored by the IAFP Foundation, the Student Travel Scholarships provide travel funds to enable selected students to travel to and participate in IAFP 2015.

Nicole Arnold is an M.Sc. student in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh, working toward a Food Science degree with a minor in Agricultural and Extension Education. During her undergraduate studies at NCSU, Ms. Arnold worked in the Entrepreneurial Business Laboratory and at the Howling Cow Dairy, an NCSU entity. Her thesis focuses on food safety risk communication of mechanically tenderized beef products.

Jumuna Bai Aswathanarayan is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Mysore in Mysore, India, where she is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Studies in Microbiology, funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research. Ms. Aswathanarayan completed both her B.S. in Microbiology and Chemistry and her M.Sc. in Microbiology from the University of Mysore. She is currently investigating the molecular mechanism of quorum sensing and biofilm formation in foodborne pathogens and food spoilage bacteria. She has published seven papers in international and peer-reviewed journals and five book chapters in food safety. Ms. Aswathanarayan will be presenting at IAFP 2015 in Portland.

Olayemi Kayode Bolatito is a Ph.D. candidate in the Food Safety Unit of the Department of Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Mr. Bolatito is also working as a Veterinary Diagnostician and Food Safety Officer at the Food Safety and Livestock Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Ibadan. He holds a Master’s of Veterinary Public Health (MVPH) from the University of Ibadan, where his thesis focused on biofilm formation within the Genus Mycobacterium with emphasis on Mycobacterium bovis and Mycobacteriumtuberculosis on food contact surfaces. Mr. Bolatito has co-authored three publications in international journals and will present three abstracts at IAFP 2015.

Mary Theresa Callahan is a Master’s student in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. During her undergraduate studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., Ms. Callahan worked in the Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Lab at the USDA in Beltsville, Maryland. Her current research focuses on investigating the movement of bacteria from floodwaters through soil to determine the validity of metrics that have been proposed to prevent the harvest of leafy green crops contaminated by the waters.

Ashley Chaifetz is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ms. Chaifetz obtained her M.A. in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, where her thesis focused on the survival programs of the Black Panther Party, exploring how communities provided for themselves when the government failed to do so. Her current research interests include federal and state food policy, specifically the policies and regulations regarding food safety and the inequality of goods available to and demanded by socioeconomically diverse communities.

Byron Chaves is a Ph.D. candidate in Animal Science at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, minoring in Microbiology. Mr. Chaves holds an M.S. in Food Science from Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. His research efforts have focused on characterizing and assessing the food safety status of the beef industry in Mexico and Central America. During his Ph.D. residency, Mr. Chaves has conducted research internships in Ireland and France, studying molecular mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance and improved molecular detection of foodborne pathogens. He has authored four journal articles and has held teaching, research and extension appointments at both Clemson University and Texas Tech University.

Shannon Coleman is a Ph.D. candidate in Animal Sciences with an emphasis in Food Safety at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Ms. Coleman received her Master’s in Food Science and Technology in the area of meat science at Alabama A&M University in Normal. In 2011, she received an Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate Fellowship to pursue her Ph.D. Her dissertation research focused on evaluating the concerning risk factors and detection of foodborne pathogens associated with fresh produce. Ms. Coleman also volunteers with underrepresented students and prospective freshman in the area of food and animal science.

Sydney Corkran is a Master’s student in the Department of Food Science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Ms. Corkran became very involved with the local beef industry while working at the Lambert-Powell Meat Laboratory during her undergraduate studies. She is currently investigating the transmission of E. coli O157:H7 and non-O157:H7 STECs during beef slaughter in small and very small processing operations. Upon completion of her degree, Ms. Corkran plans to obtain her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology and pursue a research position that allows her to investigate the pathogenesis in foodborne and zoonotic disease.

Shani Craighead is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at the University of Delaware in Newark. Prior to her doctoral studies, Ms. Craighead was an undergraduate research assistant in a food microbiology laboratory, inspiring her to pursue a food safety career. She currently conducts a variety of projects evaluating the use of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria to reduce the contamination of produce and seeds by pathogenic bacteria. Her research aims to provide the food industry and regulatory agencies with pertinent information regarding current and new practices proposed by the Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act.

Phillip Gurman is a Ph.D. candidate with the Food Safety Centre at the School of Land and Food at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, based at the South Australian Research and Development Institute in Adelaide, Australia. Originally from Sydney, Mr. Gurman embarked on a doctoral project funded by Australian Pork Limited, which consists of a quantitative risk assessment for salmonellosis from the consumption of pork products. His research throughout this project aims to provide industry with information to be used to manage any potential risks associated with pork products.

Olivier Kamana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Food Safety and Food Quality at the University of Ghent in Belgium. Originally from Rwanda, Mr. Kamana obtained his DVM at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, where he worked on the non-conformities in HACCP in Senegalese fisheries certified for exportation in the European Union. He became an Assistant Lecturer at the Higher Institute of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in Rwanda before pursuing his doctoral research on microbiological quality and safety of milk and dairy products in Rwanda, with support from the Belgium Development Agency. Mr. Kamana was recently appointed as the first Head of the Department of Food Safety and Quality Management at the newly-established University of Rwanda.

Matthew Moore is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Mr. Moore is conducting research in multiple areas, primarily focusing on human noroviruses, where he has developed nucleic acid aptamers – novel alternative ligands – for the concentration and detection of human noroviruses. Mr. Moore tied for first place in the Developing Scientist Poster Competition at IAFP 2014 for his work on the “Use of a Nucleic Acid Aptamer-based Method to Study Thermal Inactivation of Human Norovirus.”

Desmond Tichaona Mugadza is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Food Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Mr. Mugadza served as a teaching assistant before receiving his M.Sc. in Food Science and Nutrition from Midlands State University in Zimbabwe, and became an appointed lecturer after graduation. His current research focuses on the diversity and characterization of Bacillus spp. and Paenibacillus spp. in extended shelf-life milk.

Victor Ntuli is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Food Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, where he is working on the characterization of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli from bulk milk sold in the informal sector in South Africa. Mr. Ntuli received his M.Sc. in Biotechnology at the University of Zimbabwe, where his thesis focused on producing activated carbon used in drinking water treatment from locally found raw materials. After completion of his Master’s degree, Mr. Ntuli served as a Food Biotechnology lecturer at the National University of Lesotho in Lesotho. His areas of competence include: food safety, quality assurance, risk analysis and microbiological food safety using molecular techniques.

Alia Osman, a native of Sudan, is currently an M.Sc. student in the Department of Food Safety, Faculty of Public and Environmental Health, at the University of Khartoum in Sudan. Ms. Osman is finalizing her thesis on the challenges that face the implementation of the HACCP system in the dairy industry in Khartoum. She is a research assistant at the Department of Bacteriology within the Sudan Veterinary Research Institute. Her future plans include pursuing a Ph.D. in Food Safety to study and develop methods for rapidly screening foodborne illnesses and strategies to prevent them.

Isaac Rwomushana Rukundo is a joint Master’s degree student in Food Technology at Ghent University and at Katholieke University of Leuven, both in Belgium, with a focus on food safety, quality management, food policy, and regulations. Originally from Uganda, Mr. Rukundo completed his undergraduate degree in Food Science and Technology at Makerere University in Kampala, and continued as a Graduate Assistant working with the Food Technology and Business Incubation Center. Mr. Rukundo’s Master’s thesis focuses on studying the influence of potassium sorbate and pH (using alternative detection methods) on the growth of selected yeast and bacteria species implicated in the spoilage of butter.

Daniel Unruh is a Ph.D. candidate in Food Safety and Food Policy at Kansas State University in Olathe. He is based at the Olathe Innovation Campus in metro Kansas City. A native of Kansas, Mr. Unruh received his M.Sc. in the Applied Food Safety Laboratory at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. His current research is comprised of laboratory-based investigations and policy-based analysis of antimicrobial resistance in foodborne pathogens, work on produce safety and efficacy of interventions for beef processing, and extension activity with industry and the public.

Pratheeba Yogendrarajah is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Food Safety and Food Quality and the Department of Bioanalysis at Ghent University in Belgium. Ms. Yogendrarajah’s dissertation is entitled “Risk Assessment of Mycotoxins and Predictive Mycology in Sri Lanka Spices: Chilli and Pepper,” where part of her research was completed in her native country of Sri Lanka. During her doctoral research, Ms. Yogendrarajah has first-authored four peer-reviewed and four submitted scientific papers, including chromatographic method development for multiple mycotoxins analysis, moulds characterization, risk assessment, and predictive modeling. She received her M.Sc. in Food Technology from Ghent University and Katholieke University of Leuven, both in Belgium.

Dewi Yunita is a Ph.D. candidate in Food Microbiology at The University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, where she is working on microbial dynamics of Stichelton cheese ripening. Her research focuses on potentially helping blue cheese makers to produce a more consistent cheese, specifically if the source is from raw milk. A native of Indonesia, Ms. Yunita received her M.Res. in Biosciences at The University of Nottingham, majoring in Food Microbiology and Food Safety with the British Universities’ Scholarship Scheme for Higher Education Institutions in Aceh, Indonesia.