Thomas Rippen - Seafood technology specialist, Sea Grant Extension Program, University of Maryland
Expertise: Seafood processing, listeria, histamines - "I assist seafood processors with pathogen-control procedures, especially pasteurization and other moderate thermal processing methods, and plant sanitation programs (good manufacturing practices, cleaning, sanitation and chemical application systems); "Listeria control and, most recently, histamine (scombrotoxin) control, are current applied research projects."

Contact: (w) (410) 651-6636; (h) (410) 543-0361; terippen@mail.umes.edu
Website: http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/Extension/sfprocessing.html

Y. Martin Lo -Assistant professor, food bioprocess engineering and food safety extension, nutrition and food science, University of Maryland
Expertise: Integrating biotechnology with state-of-the-art strategies in process engineering to ensure safety of food and processing; recovery and bioconversion of organic materials from food processing waste streams; food bioprocess engineering; value-added product development; development of whole-cell biosensor to improve food safety; international coordination

Credentials: Experience in industrial HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) training; industrial troubleshooting; food science/safety education
Contact: (301) 405-4509; yl89@umail.umd.edu
Website: http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/nfsc/martinlo.htm

Robert Sprinkle M.D. - Assistant professor, School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland
Expertise: Health effects of food production and sterilization methods; food biotechnologies; biosabotage of food supply; environment; bioethics; food choices, and food marketing and the health-policy problems implied thereby; environmental effects of production methods in field agriculture, animal husbandry and industrial fishing; the microbial environment as an arbiter of human, animal and plant health and a site of collateral damage in the food and fiber industries; prospect of the biosabotage of agriculture by individuals, groups, hostile states or unscrupulously competing corporations; impediments to public-policy innovation

Credentials Editor-in-Chief, Politics and the Life Sciences
Contact: (w) (301) 405-0184; (h) (301) 864-2170; rs236@umail.umd.edu
Website: www.politicsandthelifesciences.org

Brian J. Bequette - assistant professor, Animal & Avian Sciences, University of Maryland
Expertise: Protein and amino acid nutrition; ruminants; poultry,fish, environment; Research program at the University of Maryland is primarliy aimed at ruminants (eg.sheep, dairy and beef cattle) and determination of the nutritional and regulatory mechanisms that contribute to the inefficient use of dietary nitrogen. Secondary research is to establish minimum protein-amino acid requirements of poultry and fish, coupled with increased use of less expensive carbohydrate sources. The overall goal is to reduce the amount of nitrogen ruminants, poultry and fish excrete into the environment by improving the animal's ability to conserve nitrogen; his group employs metabolic profiling which bridges the genetic potential and performance of animals.

Credentials: Spent 10 years at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. There, he acquired expertise (and a slight accent) in ruminant physiology and mass spectrometry and applied these to the investigation of amino acid metabolism in dairy goats and cows in order to better predict the dietary protein and amino acid requirements of lactating cows for efficient milk production.
Contact: 301 405-8457; bbequett@umd.edu
Website: ansc.umd.edu/faculty/bbmain.htm