Depoorere is currently Professor at University of Leuven, Belgium. She has Master's Degree in chemistry (biochemistry), University Leuven, and PhD degree in scienes at the same university. Her research interests are gastroenterology, gastrointestinal disorders, and endocrinology. She is the personal investigator of gut peptide research lab that studies the chemosensing mechanisms of epithelial cells in the in 3D enteroids from lean and obese patients and investigates the cross talk between circadian clocks and nutrient sensing pathways during chronodisruption.

Dr. Francisco Diez-Gonzalez is the Director of the Center for Food Safety and a Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Georgia, since 2016. He graduated with a BS in Food Science, from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Queretaro, Mexico. Francisco worked as R&D Manager for Griffith Laboratories in Mexico. He earned his MS and PhD in Food Science from Cornell University. He continued at Cornell as a Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Microbiology. In 1999, he joined the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota as Assistant Professor in Food Safety Microbiology. He was promoted to Associate and full Professor in 2005 and 2011, respectively, and he served as Department Head from 2014 to 2016. He taught courses on food safety and food microbiology. He has authored 100 peer-review articles and 13 book chapters. He serves in the editorial board of Frontiers of Microbiology, Journal of Food Protection, Microbiology Spectrum, and Food Protection Trends. He participated as panel member of multiple USDA’s granting programs and was a member of a National Research Council’s Committee on risk ranking. He serves in the USDA’s National Advisory Council for Microbiological Criteria in Foods. He conducts research on ecology, control, and detection of foodborne bacteria in different food commodities.

Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Food Science (Purdue University) and Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences/Public Health (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). She is best known for her efforts in food virology, having served as Scientific Director of the USDA-NIFA Food Virology Collaborative (NoroCORE). Dr. Jaykus has 30 years’ experience training undergraduate and graduate students in food microbiology; leading food safety research projects; and working with external stakeholders in the food and beverage, sanitation and hygiene, and cruise line industries. Having authored or co-authored over 200 scientific publications, her other professional activities include membership on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF); participation in several National Academies consensus studies and on the Food and Nutrition Board; and as a member of the executive board of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP), for which she served as president in 2010-2011.