Ep. 185. Dr. Haley Oliver: Global Food Safety Innovation to 'Feed the Future'

Haley F. Oliver, Ph.D. is the Director of the Feed the Future Food Safety Innovation Lab at Purdue University. She is also the Vice Provost for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars and the 150th Anniversary Professor of Food Science at Purdue University, renowned for her expertise in food safety microbiology. She earned dual B.S. degrees in Molecular Biology and Microbiology from the University of Wyoming in 2004, followed by a Ph.D. in Food Science, with minors in Epidemiology and Microbiology, from Cornell University in 2009. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell, Dr. Oliver joined Purdue University in 2010.

Her research focuses on the prevalence, persistence, and control of foodborne pathogens, particularly Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella in retail food environments. She has been instrumental in developing practical strategies to mitigate cross-contamination in food systems. In June 2019, Dr. Oliver became the Director of the Feed the Future Food Safety Innovation Lab, leading efforts to enhance food safety in countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Senegal.

Throughout her career, Dr. Oliver has received numerous accolades, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food and Agriculture Science Excellence in Teaching Awards, the International Association for Food Protection's (IAFP’s) Larry Beuchat Young Researcher Award in 2016, and the Purdue University Agriculture Research Award in 2023. Beyond her research, Dr. Oliver is dedicated to serving the over 13,000 students and professionals seeking graduate education and postdoctoral training at Purdue University. 

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak with Dr. Oliver [3:40] about:

• Purdue’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), founded in 2019 by Dr. Oliver with a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
• Food safety knowledge gaps and challenges identified by FSIL during its first phase, and how FSIL will address these gaps and challenges in the project’s second phase over the next five years
• FSIL’s poultry safety project in Kenya, and the food safety challenges and opportunities faced by the Kenyan poultry sector
• FSIL’s project to reduce microbial contamination of Cambodian produce, and interventions that are being implemented as part of this work
• How FSIL will leverage insights from surveys measuring consumer perspectives and attitudes toward food safety in Kenya, Cambodia, and Nepal
• The intersections between FSIL’s food safety work and efforts to improve global food security, nutrition, and sustainability
• Other projects on the horizon for FSIL
• Insights from Dr. Oliver’s personal academic research work on foodborne pathogens in retail food systems, control strategies for reducing cross-contamination, and food safety capacity-building.

News and Resources

Purdue Receives $10 Million to Continue Work to Strengthen Global Food Safety

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