IAFP Announces 2025 Travel Award Recipients

DES MOINES, Iowa — The International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) will present travel awards to six individuals at IAFP 2025, set for July 27–30, in Cleveland, Ohio. Sponsored by IAFP and the IAFP Foundation, the Travel Award for Health or Agricultural Department Employees in North America and the Travel Award for Food Safety Professionals in a Country with a Developing Economy will provide funding to enable recipients to travel to and participate in IAFP 2025.

The Travel Award for Health or Agricultural Department Employees in North America will be presented to the following individuals:

Emily Feldpausch is a microbiologist with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) Food Microbiology Laboratory in East Lansing, Mich. The MDARD Food Microbiology Laboratory provides regulatory testing for ready-to-eat foods, produce, dairy, environmental and animal feed samples for the state of Michigan. Feldpausch has assisted with FDA Lab Flexible Funding Model Testing and project requirements; FERN laboratory surveillance testing with partners at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services; Rapid Response Team sampling projects; and outbreak investigation testing for pathogens such as Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.    

Jeff Jackson is retail food program section chief for the Arkansas Department of Health in Little Rock. Jackson oversees all operational aspects of the retail food program, which includes ensuring compliance with the FDA Voluntary Retail Food Program Standards. He engages in foodborne outbreak responses, policy development and legislative reviews related to food safety in Arkansas. Jackson’s work as an independent contract trainer for the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) allows him to provide FDA-developed training to public health jurisdictions across the U.S.

Kelly E. Kline serves as the rapid response team food safety program specialist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in Harrisburg. Kline safeguards health during human food and animal feed emergencies, including outbreaks, contaminations and product recalls. She leads efforts to coordinate swift and effective responses by fostering strong partnerships within a diverse, multi-agency coalition, which includes collaboration with professionals at the federal, state and local levels. She provides subject matter expertise in food safety, emergency preparedness and incident management.

The Travel Award for Food Safety Professionals in a Country with a Developing Economy will be presented to the following individuals:

Amina Badmos is a food and industrial microbiologist and lecturer at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Badmos’ work focuses on ensuring food safety and security, biological control of antimicrobial-resistant microbes, drug discovery and mycotoxin mitigation, particularly in the context of climate change. Her research includes innovative projects like assessing the quality of locally produced pharmaceutical syrups and antifungal creams and investigating the antifungal efficacy of biosynthesized selenium nanoparticles from clove extract on mycotoxigenic fungi in staple cereals.

Dr. Kolawole Banwo is a senior lecturer and food safety researcher in the food microbiology and biotechnology unit of the department of microbiology at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Banwo mentors students in food safety and quality assurance at the university. He is a visiting scientist in the Aflasafe and Pathology Unit at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, where he works on the joint exploration of detoxification of various food toxicants in African traditional foods. His current research is focused on the detoxification of mycotoxins and metabolite profiles in traditional fermented foods in Nigeria, utilizing probiotics, rapid detection of food adulteration using near-infrared spectroscopy and the antimicrobial resistance profile of foodborne microorganisms, exploring the One Health Approach.

Dr. Rowaida Khalil is a full professor of food microbiology in the department of botany and microbiology on the faculty of science at Alexandria University in Alexandria, Egypt. Khalil has spent her career improving food safety standards, finding solutions to extending shelf-life and profile the safety of various food products. Her team focuses on the valorization of agro-industrial wastes to develop novel sustainable active/smart biodegradable food packaging materials and coatings.