The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is the public health agency in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) responsible for ensuring the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products. FSIS ensures food safety through the authorities of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act, as well as humane animal handling through the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
The Office of Public Health Science (OPHS)—one of many program areas supporting FSIS’ mission—brings public health leadership to USDA-FSIS to assure the establishment and support of scientifically sound food safety programs. The OPHS Risk Assessment and Analytics Staff (RAAS) conducts scientific risk assessments and develops new analytic methods for assessing risks of biological and chemical hazards in meat, poultry and egg products that inform risk management decisions and risk communication activities. RAAS’ scientific and technical analyses guide, support and enhance FSIS public health goals as they relate to regulatory initiatives, internal policy-making, data collection, research priorities, and the USDA-FSIS food safety goals.
FSIS recently announced it will develop a stronger and more comprehensive food safety framework for the control of Salmonella in poultry. Several initiatives are underway to incorporate the latest science, data and laboratory technology into FSIS’s decision-making to identify ways to control Salmonella in poultry and reduce foodborne illness.
We encourage applications from multi-disciplinary teams, to ensure we have the broad expertise needed. Applications from minority serving institutions are encouraged.
Deadline: April 15, 2022
Eligible Applicants – Academic institutions, relevant non-government organizations, independent consultants specialized in microbial risk assessments for food safety, and/or multi-disciplinary groups that bridge the areas of expertise and responsibilities are sought as a collaborator on this work. Awardee must be a U.S. organization
Expected amounts of individual awards: Individual award amount is expected to be $295,000.