Britanny Saunier, M.P.A. is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education (PFSE). She focuses on leveraging PFSE's historical leadership in cross-sector collaboration and ensuring organizational effectiveness to realize PFSE's mission to develop and promote effective education programs to reduce foodborne illness risk for consumers. 

Britanny began as an intern at PFSE in 2011, and later served as PFSE's Director of Development, successfully increasing PFSE's program service revenue and bringing diversification to PFSE's Partner network. She facilitated program engagement with consumer and academic food safety experts, supporting PFSE programs including the National Consumer Food Safety Education Conference. 

Britanny holds a master's degree in Public Administration with a Health Policy focus from the School of Public Affairs at the American University in Washington, D.C. 

Ashley Eisenbeiser, M.S., C.F.S. is Senior Director for Food and Product Safety Programs for FMI, The Food Industry Association and a food scientist specializing in food safety. In her role, Ashley serves as a subject matter expert for food and product safety for FMI's food safety programs and provides support for FMI's retail, wholesale, and product supplier members on food safety training, technical services, regulatory compliance, and industry research and resources.

Prior to joining FMI in June 2013, Ashley served as a Family and Consumer Science Extension Agent with Virginia Cooperative Extension, where she planned, delivered, and evaluated community nutrition, health, and food safety educational programs. Ashley is a Certified Food Scientist and received her master's and bachelor’s degrees in Food Science and Technology from Virginia Tech.

Ashley serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Partnership for Food Safety Education and is a member of several professional associations, including the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP), the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), and the Conference for Food Protection (CFP).

Alissa Welsher, Ph.D. is a Senior Consultant at Elanco Poultry Food Safety. Dr. Welsher received her bachelor's degree in biological sciences from the University of Pittsburgh, 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 in meat and poultry food safety, and she specializes in integrated pest management (IPM). 

Brady Carter, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientific Officer at Carter Scientific Solutions. He specializes in water activity, moisture sorption, shelf-life stability, plant science, and wheat production and quality. He has 23 years of experience in research and development and previously was a Research Professor at Washington State University focusing on wheat end-use quality. Dr. Carter has pioneered work in using dynamic isotherms to investigate product stability and establish critical water activities for optimal shelf life. He also specializes in shelf-life loss and effective utilization of instrumentation to address product safety and quality issues. Dr. Carter holds a Ph.D. in Crop Science and Food Engineering and an M.S degree in Cereal Chemistry and Crop Science from Washington State University, as well as a B.A. degree in Botany from Weber State University.

To get a taste of the discussions that were happening at the 2026 Food Safety Summit, we spoke face-to-face with Roberta Wagner, M.Sc., Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs for the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA); Steven Mandernach, J.D., Executive Director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) and Sandra Eskin, J.D., CEO of STOP Foodborne Illness; Jacob Nelson, Asset Protection Sales Manager at the Sherwin-Williams Company and Feraas Aiameh, Food and Beverage Marketing Manager at the Sherwin-Williams Company; Conrad Choiniere, Ph.D., Director of  the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA's) Office of Microbiological Food Safety, Vanessa Coffman, Ph.D., Director of the Alliance to Stop Foodborne Illness, and Lone Jespersen, Ph.D., Founder and Principal of Cultivate SA; and Cindy Jiang, Senior Director, Global Food Safety Risk Management, Global Supply Chain at McDonald's (retired).

To get a taste of the discussions that were happening at the 2026 Food Safety Summit, we spoke face-to-face with Jeremy Zenlea, M.B.A., Vice President and Head of Health and Safety for EG America and Laurie Farmer, Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Office of Retail Food Protection; David Clifford, M.B.A., Director of Food Safety at Nestlé USA and Sara Mortimore, M.Sc., Founder of Sara Mortimore LLC and formerly Vice President for Food Safety at Walmart; Frank Curto, Ph.D., Vice President of Operations at Ecowize North America; and Drew McDonald, Senior Vice President of Quality, Food Safety, and Regulatory Affairs for Taylor Fresh Foods and Conrad Choiniere, Ph.D., Director of FDA’s Office of Microbiological Food Safety.

Larry Keener, CFS, PA is President and CEO of International Product Safety Consultants Inc. and an internationally regarded microbiologist and process authority in the food industry. His areas of expertise range from applied food microbiology to the development and application of novel preservation technologies.

In this bonus episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to Jenny Du, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Apeel Sciences, about Apeel—a clean alternative to traditional post-harvest produce coatings and treatments—its transparent approach to disrupting an $11 billion industry.