MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2, 2004

For more information
please contact:

Contact: Todd Diel
708.563.8174
diel@iit.edu

INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED FOOD SCIENTIST TO BE NEW NCFST DIRECTOR

Darsh Wasan, Ph.D., Vice President of IIT and Interim Director of the National Center for Food Safety & Technology (NCFST) announced the appointment of Martin Cole, Ph.D., as the Center's new Director.

Dr. Cole will be leaving his position co-Director of Australia's National Centre of Excellence in Food Safety to assume the leadership of NCFST. Dr. Cole is a fellow of Food Standards Australia New Zealand and Research Professor at the University of Tasmania.

Dr. Cole has over 10 years experience within the Codex Food Hygiene Committee where he has served on a number of different country delegations including the US and Australia. He is the chairman of the International Commission for the Microbiological Safety of Foods, a member of the Editorial Board of Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Food Safety magazine. This year, he is the recipient of the International Association for Food Protection's prestigious Ivan Parkin Lecture as well as being the International Leadership award winner.

In Europe, Cole chaired the main technical groups producing models for the UK government's program, FoodMicromodel, as well as the European Commonwealth/FLAIR concerted action on modeling. Cole has held a number of senior positions within the food industry including: Head of Microbiology for Unilever in England and the Netherlands;, and Group Director of Food Safety for Nabisco in the US. He has presented and published over 80 papers on many aspects of food safety including predictive microbial modeling, risk assessment and novel food preservation technology.

The National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST) is a research consortium of industry, government, and academia which addresses the food safety implications of emerging technologies in food processing and packaging. The National Center serves as a neutral ground for food safety research, education, and information exchange among food industry, government, and academic scientists. NCFST is located at Illinois Institute of Technology's Moffett Campus (near Chicago) in Bedford Park, Illinois.