Food Safety & Analysis Congress 2016 Keynote Speakers

Andy Morling Head of the Food Crime Unit, Food Standards Agency UK Andy began his criminal law enforcement career over 20 years ago as a specialist investigator in the globally respected Investigation Division of HM Customs and Excise. The focus of this role was tackling the threat to the UK from organised international drug trafficking and serious economic crime. In 2001, following the lengthy trial of a prominent sports promoter, Andy received a formal commendation from the trial Judge for his role leading the complex criminal investigation. Throughout his early career, Andy became skilled in the use of covert surveillance and other sensitive investigative techniques, a specialism that briefly took him away from operational work on secondment to a role as covert surveillance course manager in national police training. At the end of his secondment, Andy returned to frontline law enforcement as Head of Intelligence at the Serious Fraud Office in London. Here the focus was on serious and complex white collar crime and international bribery and corruption. In 2010 Andy joined the Serious Organised Crime Agency (now the National Crime Agency) with responsibility for leading the strategic response to child sexual exploitation and abuse. In this highly challenging yet highly rewarding role, Andy became internationally recognised as an expert in the criminal threat from online child sexual abuse. Andy joined the Food Standards Agency at the end of March 2015 as Head of Food Crime with the task of building the Agency's National Food Crime Unit.
John O'Brien Deputy Head, Nestle Research Center Dr John O’Brien is Deputy Head of the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne and Leader of the Nestlé Food Safety & Integrity Research Programme. He was formerly Chief Executive Officer of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland and previously held a number of senior posts with the Danone Group in Paris including Head of Food Safety and Head of Corporate Scientific Affairs. He is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), Europe and a member of the Board of Trustees of ILSI International. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Food Safety & Health, Illinois Institute of Technology, a Council Member of Campden BRI, a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board, School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University, Belfast and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Northern Ireland Centre for Food & Health at the University of Ulster. He has held academic posts at the University of Surrey and University College Cork and was the founding editor of the leading food journal Trends in Food Science & Technology. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of Ulster, UK. John O’Brien’s training was in toxicology, food chemistry and food science and he is a graduate of University College, Cork, Ireland and the University of Surrey, UK. He completed business courses at INSEAD and at the London Business School.
Michele Suman Research Manager, Barilla SpA Research Labs Michele Suman was born in Rovigo, Italy, in 1973. He is married and with two children. Michele obtained his Analytical Chemistry Degree, Summa Cum Laude, at University of Ferrara in 1997. He won the National Prize for Young Researchers promoted by the Italian Chemistry Federation (Federchimica) in 1998. Then he took a master's degree in 1998 (Master in Science, Technology and Management from University of Ferrara, working at the same time at the "Natta Research Center" of Shell-Montell Polyolefins) and a doctorate in 2005 (PhD in Science and Technology of Innovative Materials from University of Parma), landing the role of Food Chemistry & Safety Research Manager in Barilla Spa company in 2003. Here he has been working in an international contest with public and private research centers\organizations on research projects within the field of food chemistry, food safety-quality-authenticity, food contact materials, sensing and mass spectrometry applications for food products. He is member of working groups in European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and of the ILSI Process Related Compounds & Natural Toxins Task Force; Leader in the Food Safety Section of Italian National Cluster Agrifood, member of the Board of Mass Spectrometry Division – Italian Chemistry Society; he is also involved in editorial boards of important peer-reviewed journals (World Mycotoxin Journal, Food Additives and Contaminants,…). He has been involved in various National/European Funded Projects and presently he is WP Leader in the EU-FP7 FoodIntegrity Project and in the EU-H2020 MyToolBox projects. He has developed experience in academic teaching activities, Masters\PhD projects supervision, coordination/chairmanship of international conferences (Recent Advances in Food Analysis, World Mycotoxins Forum, MS Food Day, Rapid Methods Europe,…). His scientific production is documented by four book chapters, 88 contributions at national and international conferences and 53 papers in international ISI journals.
Saskia van Ruth Professor, Wageningen University Prof. Saskia van Ruth heads the Food Authenticity and Nutrients group at RIKILT Wageningen UR in the Netherlands since 2005. In 2012 she was appointed as professor Food Authenticity and Integrity at the Wageningen University, which doubles with her management position at RIKILT. She received her PhD in Food Chemistry from the Wageningen University in 1995 and subsequently carried out research on lipid and volatiles chemistry as post-doctoral researcher for Unilever. From 1998 till 2005 she joined the Nutritional Sciences Department of University College Cork in Ireland, after which she moved to RIKILT Wageningen UR. Her present research interests concern complex authentication issues with regard to composition, production systems (organic, sustainable, halal), geographical origin, processing, and typicality with application of state-of-the-art analytical methodology in combination with chemometrics. Furthermore, she is involved in research on factors determining food fraud vulnerability. She has published 180+ scientific papers, and participated in numerous national, EU and global projects/committees/networks.