05/26/2005

AU's Wang Named to Olympic Food Safety Board

AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn University biosystems engineer Yifen Wang has been named to a 15-member international board that will play a key role in ensuring food safety and security at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

Wang is one of five U.S. representatives on the Beijing Olympics’ new Food Safety Expert Board, which also includes food-safety authorities from China, Australia and the European Union. Wang has been designated as the U.S. liaison for the board.

The Food Safety Expert Board is charged with providing timely professional advice and scientific guidance on food safety for the Olympic Games and with helping develop, review and implement food safety protocol manuals for the games.

The board’s first meeting will be July 3-7 in Beijing and will include visits to the Olympic venues as well as agricultural facilities, food-processing plants and markets.

A native of Shanghai, China, Wang earned his bachelor’s degree in food engineering from Shanghai Fisheries University in 1990 and worked as a food scientist in the China Academy of Fisheries Science, as a visiting scientist in the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and as director of a seafood processing plant in Dakar, Senegal. He came to the U.S. in 1998 and, in a span of five years, earned a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle and a doctorate in food engineering and a master’s in business administration, both from Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

In 2004, he joined the AU College of Agriculture’s Department of Biosystems Engineering as assistant professor of food engineering. At Auburn, Wang’s research focuses primarily on food safety engineering and processing and on using radio frequency identification devices to establish a food traceability system.

Wang was appointed to the Food Safety Expert Board based on his expertise in the areas of food safety and food engineering and on his experience in the technical and the administrative arenas. His work in both the government and private sectors in China is credited with improving the quality and safety of that country’s exported aquatic food products.

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News from:

Office of Ag Communications & Marketing

Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 Comer Hall, Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)

Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu
Contact Yifen Wang, 334-844-8051 or wangyif@auburn.edu

For immediate release