Gary R. Acuff is President of Acuff Consulting, LLC and he currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M University where he was a faculty member in food microbiology for 39 years. Dr. Acuff served as Head of the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M from 2004-2010 and was the director of the Texas A&M Center for Food Safety from 2010-2016. He served as President of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) in 2008 and was inducted as an IAFP Fellow in 2013. He was named a Fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology in 2014. Dr. Acuff served on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Advisory Committee from 2010-2013 and he currently serves as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Food (NACMCF).
Dr. Acuff obtained his B.S. in biology from Abilene Christian University in 1980 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in food science and technology, specializing in food microbiology, from Texas A&M University in 1982 and 1985, respectively. His research has focused on improving the microbiological quality and safety of food, and recent activities have centered on pathogen survival in low moisture foods and the effective use of surrogate bacteria for validation of process control in HACCP and Preventive Control systems.