International Association for Food Protection Elects Katherine M.J. Swanson to Executive Board

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Members of the International Association for Food Protection elected Katherine M.J. Swanson to the Executive Board as Secretary. Dr. Swanson will take office at the conclusion of IAFP 2009 in Grapevine, Texas, and will fulfill a five-year commitment to the Association serving as President in 2012-2013.

 Dr. Swanson is Vice President of Food Safety at Ecolab Inc., where she identifies control strategies for emerging food safety concerns and assists customers with high level food safety issues. With a long history of appointments on influential committees, Dr. Swanson has made significant contributions to food safety. She is a member of the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF), and chairs their editorial committee. She is also a seven-year member of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF).

Dr. Swanson is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and completed a three-year term on the IFT Board of Directors in 2008. She also served on the Food and Drug Administration's Science Advisory Board, the Conference for Food Protection's Council III, and currently serves on the National Academy of Science's Standing Committee for the Review of Food Safety and Defense Risk Assessments, Analyses, and Data. Dr. Swanson has published and presented on food safety management, microbial ecology of vegetable and cereal products, norovirus, Bacillus cereus, and Listeria monocytogenes, and in the last five years alone has delivered over 50 invited presentations around the world.

Since joining in 1980, Dr. Swanson has enthusiastically served IAFP. She was on the Journal of Food Protection Editorial Board for 11 years (1988-99) and the Food Protection Trends Editorial Board for three years (2005-07). She was also an active member of the Organizing Committee for the very successful 2008 IAFP Latin America Symposium on Food Safety held in Campinas, Brazil. Dr. Swanson was a past jury member for the Black Pearl Award and has presented numerous papers at IAFP Annual Meetings.

Dr. Swanson received her BS degree in Dietetics from the University of Delaware, and her MS and Ph.D. degrees in Food Science from the University of Minnesota. She has received numerous awards, including the 2003 NFPA (now GMA) Food Safety Award and the 2008 National Center for Food Safety and Technology Food Safety Award.