Mark Stone
Committee co-chair. Department head and professor, Biological Systems Engineering. Research interests have included integrated water resources management and socio-ecological systems resilience. Served as principal investigator or co-investigator on 15 National Science Foundation awards. Has incorporated inclusive practices in his research, teaching and leadership.
Amanda Ramer-Tait
Committee co-chair. Associate professor, Department of Food Science and Technology. Understanding host-microbiota interactions is the focus for her laboratory, with particular interest in causative relationships between gut microbiota and chronic, inflammatory diseases; potential dietary interventions to improve inflammatory diseases via modulation of gut microbiota; and microbiome manipulation to promote disease prevention and treatment.
David Jackson
Vice Provost. Professor, Department of Food Science and Technology. Helps facilitate research collaborations across NU campuses. Helps administer the Nebraska Research Initiative involving an annual $11.5 million state appropriation. Supervises the director of Nebraska EPSCoR. Serves on the Board of Directors for the Nebraska Strategic Research Institute. He is a cereal chemist with expertise in food processing, corn/sorgum grain quality and polymer chemistry.
Andreia Bianchini
Associate professor, Department of Food Science and Technology. Research interests: applied research evaluating food ingredients and developing strategies to reduce/prevent contamination by mycotoxins and bacterial pathogens; development of quality control mechanisms; and systematic identification, evaluation and control of food safety hazards. Extension activities: technical advice and training regarding food safety; preparation of related guidelines, protocols, standard operating procedures and technical documents.
Byron Chaves
Assistant professor, Department of Food Science and Technology. Instructional work focuses on food quality assurance and food safety microbiology. Extension work provides food safety training and technical assistance to the Nebraska and regional food manufacturing industry. He is the state lead for the North Central Region FSMA Center, which focuses on successful implementation of FDA food safety regulations across Nebraska.
Mary-Grace Danao
Research associate professor, Department of Food Science and Technology. Research interests: food and bioprocess engineering focusing on value-added processing, storage and transportation of food and agricultural commodities; developing novel methods, techniques and procedures to evaluate and characterize food products for quality control and safety assurance.
Karen Nieto Florez
Ph.D. student and graduate research assistant, Department of Food Science and Technology.
Mary Moran
President of the Food Science Club, Department of Food Science and Technology.
Janos Zempleni
Professor, Nutrition and Health Sciences, College of Education and Health Sciences. Willa Cather professor of molecular nutrition. Director of the Nebraska Center for the Prevention of Obesity Diseases. His lab focuses on how nutrition affects gene expression, with innovative research in a novel class of bioactive food compounds discovered by the lab.
Jonathan Merkle
Vice president of research development and Innovation and chief science officer for Michael Foods, headquartered in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Experienced in managing product development, research, product and process engineering, and packaging for the food and beverage market. Ph.D. in food science from the University of Minnesota.
Julie McManamey
Graduate program coordinator, Department of Food Science and Technology.