I am the Food Safety Microbiologist at Sargento Foods Inc. I have been at Sargento for two years, and my primary duties are to provide risk assessments on ingredients brought into the company and leaving the company. I am also Event chair of our new Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging initiative. My previous career was in government and academia over the span of 19 years. I was an ORISE Fellow in the molecular genetics department at FDA-CFSAN-OARSA. My doctoral dissertation was in collaboration with the WHO helping to set up Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Labs in developing countries, specifically in Uganda. Fifteen years of my career was managing the Salmonella and E. coli lab, a part of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) at the USDA.