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New FDA Branch Chief Chosen at Moffett

     Chicago, Ill. – March 27, 2006

     Mary Lou Tortorello, Ph.D. is FDA’s new Chief of the Food Technology Branch/Division of Food Processing and Packaging at the National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST).  Tortorello has been with FDA at the Moffett Campus of the NCFST since 1991. 

     "Lou's solid technical background and pleasant but firm personality gives us vital leadership that will be essential to our cooperative research program as we continue addressing emerging food safety issues,” said Richard McDonald, Ph.D., Director of Food Processing and Packaging, Center for Food Safety and Nutrition, NCFST.

     Tortorello has served as the principal investigator on several NCFST collaborative research projects including developing rapid detection methods for microbial survival, survival and behavior of biothreat agents in foods, and the survival and recovery of Listeria monocytogenes in foods and food processing environments.  She is currently the Laboratory Quality Assurance Chair and the Microbiology Platform Coordinator at the NCFST.  She serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Food Protection and is the Chief Editor of Food Microbiology.

     Before coming to NCFST/FDA, Tortorello was an instructor and research associate in the Department of Microbiology at Cornell University (1987-1991).  There, she taught General Microbiology, an undergraduate course with an enrollment of nearly 200 students each semester.  Her professional background also includes work at Abbott Laboratories (1986-1987), where she was a product manager with responsibility for technical development and support of antibody and recombinant antigen reagents for a disagnostic test for the AIDS virus.

     She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from Cornell University, N.Y., M.S. in Biological Sciences from Loyola University, Ill., and her B.S. in Biological Sciences from Northern Illinois University, Ill. 

     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 Summit-Argo, Illinois.

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