Dr. Ricke received his B.S. degree in Animal Science (1979) an M.S. degree in Ruminant Nutrition (1982) from the Univ. of Illinois and his Ph.D. degree (1989) from the Univ. of Wisconsin with a co-major in Animal Science and Bacteriology. From 1989 to 1992 Dr. Ricke was a USDA-ARS postdoctorate in the Microbiology Department at North Carolina State Univ. He was at Texas A&M Univ. for 13 years and was a professor in the Poultry Science Dept. with joint appointments on the Food Science and Technology, Molecular and Environmental Plant Sciences, and Nutrition Faculties and the Veterinary Pathobiology Dept. He has been honored in 2002 as a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Faculty Fellow. In 2005, he became the first holder of the new Wray Endowed Chair in Food Safety and Director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Arkansas. He is also a faculty member of the Dept. of Food Science and the Cellular and Molecular Graduate program. Richard K. Gast is a Supervisory Microbiologist at the U. S. National Poultry Research Center in Athens, Georgia. He received a Ph.D. in Poultry Science from The Ohio State University and has served as a scientist for USDA’s Agricultural Research Service since 1987. He has been Research Leader of the Egg Safety and Quality Research Unit since its founding in 2005. The mission of this research group is to protect both the health of consumers and the marketability of eggs by developing improved technologies for egg production and processing that reduce or eliminate microorganisms which can transmit disease to humans or cause spoilage.