Lecturers
Gerald G Moy served as the GEMS/ Food Manager in the ‘Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses’ at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva for more than 20 years. GEMS/ Food, a joint WHO/ UNEP programme to monitor levels and trends of contaminants in the food supply and the diet, was instrumental in promoting total diet studies as well as the five international and several regional workshops and training courses beginning in 1999. Gerald is the co-editor of two recently published books, ‘Total Diet Studies (Springer, New York, November 2013) and Encyclopaedia of Food Safety (Elsevier, London, January 2014). Amongst other consulting work, he has peer-reviewed reports from several total diet studies, including Australia and Papua New Guinea. He is also a member of the International Advisory Committee of the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, the Technical Advisory Group of World Food Program and the WHO International Virtual Advisory Group on Mass Gatherings and the Committee on Food Safety of the International Union of Food Science and Technology.
Véronique Sirot (ANSES) is a doctor of epidemiology and public health, and has been a scientific coordinator in the Risk Assessment Department of the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES) since 2005. She works in the field of risk assessment providing input into the scientific committees of ANSES, particularly in the areas of seafood, as well as participating actively in several research projects. In charge of studies on exposure to food chemicals, Véronique was in the coordination team for the second French TDS (2005-2011), and is now involved in the on-going infant French TDS (2010-2014). She also participated in the EFSA working group on Total Diet Studies (2010-2011) and is author or co-author of about 40 articles on dietary exposure and risk/benefit assessment.
Aida Turrini (CRA-NUT) has a background in statistics. She has worked at the Italian National Statistics Bureau developing software (1979-1986) but has focused on nutrition since 1986 when she became researcher at National Institute of Nutrition (INRAN). INRAN became part of the Agricultural Research Council (CRA) in 2013. Aida has been involved in three Italian nationwide dietary surveys, and coordinated the most recent one. Director of the INRAN Scientific Program for the “database system: food composition and food consumption data”, Aida has considerable experience leading research teams in national and international projects covering a wide range of research where food consumption and food composition data are required including dietary evaluation and dietary exposure of the population. She has been on several Italian and European Committees as an expert in the food consumption and food information processing. She also teaches statistics and nutritional database management at graduate and post-graduate levels.
Siân Astley (EuroFIR AISBL) has worked extensively with individuals and organisations throughout Europe from a variety of disciplines including research, food and biotech industries and the media. She is author of more than 300 popular science articles for magazines and trade publications as well as 25 peer-reviewed papers, and she was awarded her Diploma in Science Communication in 2009 (Birkbeck University of London). After 14 years as a bench-scientist, Siân became Communications Manager for NuGO, one of the first FP6 Networks of Excellence, and was the European Communications Manager for the Institute of Food Research in Norwich (UK) until April 2012. Currently, she is the Training and Communication Manager for EuroFIR AISBL supporting training within EU-funded research projects and networks and communication of research activities.
Fanny Heraud (EFSA) has eight years experience in data collection and exposure assessment. She started work at the French Agency responsible for food safety (ANSES) in 2005 and coordinated field studies and risk assessment related to the chlordecone.In 2008, she became the deputy head of the Chemical Exposure and Quantitative Risk Assessment Unit (ANSES) and was in charge of ‘pesticides residues in food’. In 2011, she joined the Dietary and Monitoring Unit of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). Fanny provides support to the expert panels in exposure assessment in field of contaminants (dioxins, acrylamide, mycotoxins), conducts methodological developments in exposure modelling and contributes to implementation of EU Menu, an initiative to collect harmonised food consumption data throughout Europe.
Ruth Charrondiere (FAO) is a nutritionist and has worked on dietary assessment, food composition, biodiversity, sustainable diets and exposure assessment. Ruth is also an expert in Total Diet Studies, and served on the EFSA working group on Total Diet Studies. Since 2002, Ruth has worked at the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and she is the coordinator of INFOODS (International Network of Food Data Systems). She has contributed to capacity development in food composition through teaching in many international courses, and the development of the Food Composition Study Guide – a distance-learning tool – and the Compilation Tool – simple food composition database management system in Microsoft Excel. She has also published about 190 scientific articles, book chapters, technical or policy-guidance documents, and databases/ tables/ tools.
Laurence Castle (FERA) is an analytical chemist by training. He has worked on chemical aspects of food safety and quality for many years and he has published extensively. He currently works at the Food and Environment Research Agency in York (UK) where he is a Principal Scientist. Laurence is also a member of the EFSA CEF Panel (Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings and Processing Aids).
Stefan Voorspoels (VITO) is a pharmacist who specialises in analytical toxicology. He has expertise in a wide variety of organic and inorganic analytical techniques and food matrices. He has worked as a scientific officer at the European Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) where he was responsible for the certification of reference materials for food and environment. There, he developed a profound interest, knowledge and expertise in measurement quality and uncertainty. Currently, Stefan is scientific team leader of the analytical research team at the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO). VITO is a contract research organization that develops, validates and applies analytical methodologies for amongst other things food analysis. The activities of VITO are ISO17025 accredited. Among his current research interests are new and emerging pollutants that have only recently entered our food chain and environment.
Jayne Ireland (DFI) is a senior research scientist with 30 years of experience in the field of food composition data. She was a founding member of the French food composition data bank and was its director from 1992 until she retired at the end of 2008. At that time she was awarded the French medal of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. She participated in several European projects (FLAIR Eurofoods-Enfant, COST Action 99 – Eurofoods, Balaton, EFCOSUM, EuroFIR NoE and NEXUS) and food composition courses, where she promoted harmonisation of food composition databases. She now works part-time at Danish Food Informatics (DFI) on data documentation and food description, and is Secretary of the European technical committee of the LanguaL thesaurus for food description.
Karl Presser (ETHZ) is a postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Computer Science of ETH Zurich in the Global Information Systems Group, led by Prof. M. Norrie. He trained as a computer scientist and earned his doctoral degree at ETHZ investigating data quality on food composition data focusing on basic principles of data quality and how a computer system can support users to manage data quality. Karl was the primary creator of FoodCASE, an information system to manage food composition data where (some) research work is incorporated. Karl continues this research work as postdoc mentoring PhD students and students. Karl participated in the FP6 EuroFIR Network of Excellence and FP7 EuroFIR NEXUS. Currently, he is a work package leader for FP7 TDS-Exposure.
Jacob van Klaveren (RIVM) received his education in Human Nutrition at Wageningen University (NL). He is an advisor for the national government, WHO, EFSA and the European Commission on various food safety issues. Since 2010, he has worked at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) as senior scientific advisor for model development and integration of models in public health and risk assessment issues. Jacob has been involved in many European projects regarding integrated risk assessment and model development, and he coordinates ACROPOLIS, a project aiming to improve cumulative and aggregated exposure in Europe.
Isabel Castanheira (INSA) is a principal scientist at the Instituto Nacional de Saúde Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), the Portuguese National Health Institute, and chair of TC 23 IMEKO Food and Nutrition Metrology. Her research activities are performed within three interacting themes namely: Bioinorganic Chemistry, Food Safety and Quality, and Metrology of Food and Nutrition. She is interested in analysing and studying the content of classical nutrients and contaminants in food products in terms of the comparability and reliability of the measurement values. Presently, this is undertaken as part of ORQUE SUDOE EU Project and Total Diet Study Exposure as well as other national and inter-continental projects. Her contribution to ORQUE SUDOE is focused on scientific aspects of food analysis originated from backyards of Sado estuary. The work in TDS-Exposure is focused on human exposure to food contaminants including heavy metals. She is appointed responsibility for Task 9.9 – Quality Management Practices, and cooperates scientifically with WP5 – Development and implementation of (a) quality standard framework for TDS Centres in Europe. Both work packages are committed to the development of a dedicated quality system, initially in pilot countries, but to be extended to all participating organisations.