Foodborne illnesses continue to pose a substantial public health burden in the United States and around the world. One persistent contributing problem is a relatively poor level of food safety “knowledge” in the population at-large. To address this, there is a clear need to expand existing food safety education and awareness programs, and to establish new ones. However, this cannot be done without a critical mass of food safety professionals. Unfortunately, career and educational opportunities in food safety are largely unrecognized by K-12 and undergraduate students, meaning that many students come to food safety relatively late in their academic training. The purpose of this symposium is to highlight innovative approaches to engaging future food safety professionals by targeting K-12 and undergraduate populations. The symposium will kick off with two presentations on different strategies used recently to reach this important pool of future food safety professionals followed by a presentation describing USDA-NIFA priorities for food safety outreach. Attendees will come away with an understanding of why it is important to include food safety education in K-12 and undergraduate curricula and how engaging these students can help grow the population of food safety professionals around the world.

Presentations