Lone Jespersen, Ph.D., Founder and Principal of food safety culture consultancy Cultivate, has dedicated the last 15 years of her life to bettering food manufacturing operations and studying how culture affects food safety performance. She holds a Ph.D. in Culture Enabled Food Safety and has created a network of worldwide collaborators within the food supply chain. After 11 years with Maple Leaf Foods—including an uphill battle to regain consumer trust following the 2008 tragedy that killed 23 people—Dr. Jespersen’s life purpose shifted. At the time, she was in charge of food safety and operations learning strategies. After much introspection, questioning, and scrutiny, Dr. Jespersen led the relaunch and execution of Maple Leaf Foods' food safety and operations learning strategies, transforming the company’s food safety culture from the inside out.

Carol Wallace, Ph.D., is a Professor of Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS), Co-Director of the Nutritional Sciences and Applied Food Safety Studies Group, and the Research Lead for the School of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in the UK. Dr. Wallace holds a Ph.D. from UCLan and a B.Sc. degree in Microbiology from the University of Glasgow. Her research interests include food safety performance from farm to fork, in particular Hazards Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system effectiveness and food safety culture, causal factors in food outbreaks and incidents, and controlling food safety risk in business and the home. Dr. Wallace was instrumental in setting up the Salus Food Safety Culture Science Group, an academic network to explore and share knowledge about the emergent food safety culture field, in 2015, and she serves as its current Chair. She regularly presents at and organizes conference symposia in the areas of food safety management and culture. Dr. Wallace is also widely published in the field of food safety and is an author and co-author of several best-selling textbooks guiding industry on HACCP and FSMS.

Brittney Miller is President of Manchester Farms, America's first quail farm. What started over 40 years ago as a backyard hobby has grown into a nationally recognized, family-owned business that produces more than 80,000 quail weekly, raising them responsibly, without antibiotics or hormones, and shipping premium products to chefs, retailers, and home cooks across the country. Brittney's story is about more than farming: it is about stewardship, innovation, and family values. She combines her passion for sustainable agriculture with modern food safety standards. Her SQF Level 2 certified, HACCP-compliant farm sets the benchmark for quality in specialty poultry.

Mindy Brashears, Ph.D. is the USDA's Under Secretary for Food Safety. Dr. Brashears previously served as Under Secretary for Food Safety from 2020–2021, and Deputy Under Secretary in 2019. Dr. Brashears returns to USDA from Texas Tech University, where she was a Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor of Food Safety and Public Health, the Roth and Letch Family Endowed Chair for Food Safety, and the Director of the International Center for Food Industry Excellence.

Justin Ransom, Ph.D. is Administrator of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), where he oversees FSIS' mission to ensure the safety, wholesomeness, and proper labeling of America's commercial supply of meat, poultry, and processed egg products. He leads the agency's modernization efforts, streamlining inspection systems, strengthening public health protections, and advancing science-based policies. 

Elena Medo, M.B.A. is an entrepreneur, researcher, and inventor who has spent nearly 40 years transforming neonatal care through leadership and innovation. She has secured numerous patents, raised over $40 million across four companies, and built a legacy of firsts, including the first commercially available shelf-stable donor breast milk product; the first milk bank owned exclusively by nursing mothers; and the first medical device designed to analyze human milk. Today, as CEO and co-founder of Leonie Health PBC, established in 2023 with her daughter, Adrianne Weir, Elena is developing a revolutionary product that replicates the immune properties of colostrum to protect preterm infants against the three deadliest neonatal infections—necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAC), and sepsis—which together claim the lives of more than 30,000 hospitalized infants per year.

Alissa Welsher, Ph.D. is a Senior Consultant at Elanco Poultry Food Safety. Dr. Welsher received a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a master’s degree in poultry science and a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Arkansas. Her area of expertise is meat and poultry food safety, and she specializes in integrated pest management (IPM).

Lyle Probst is the CEO of NomadX and an accomplished entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in operations, product development, engineering, biodefense, and advanced technology commercialization.

Alex LeBeau, Ph.D., M.P.H., CIH is the owner of Exposure Assessment Consulting LLC in Orlando, Florida, where he offers toxicology, industrial hygiene, risk assessment, and public health consulting services. Over his 13-year career, he has evaluated environmental and occupational exposures and has performed toxicological evaluations of chemicals and biological agents. He has also performed human health risk assessments of contaminated sites using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state regulatory guidelines and has monitored remediation activities at those sites. To evaluate the exposure impacts on building occupants, he has performed indoor environmental quality assessments, including Legionella and water quality assessments, at healthcare, residential, and industrial facilities.