Dr. Lily Yang, Senior Manager of Food Safety, is an enthusiastic and collaborative science communicator. Her work focuses on the impacts of consumer and stakeholder attitudes, behaviors, and technological utilization within the food system to address and mitigate operational risks. Her food safety approach is through scientific and cultural inclusivity, literacy, accessibility, and capacity-building to nurture trust and bridge knowledge gaps with the Extension mindset to “meet people where they are”.

Lily earned her B.S in Food Science at UC Davis. She then worked for the USDA to develop and improve biochemical techniques for toxin detection within food matrices. Lily completed her M.S. and PhD in Food Science at Virginia Tech and was a science communicator for the International Food Information Council (IFIC).

Lily has 10+ years of experience in developing, implementing, and evaluating adaptable educational toolkits, social marketing campaigns, and social media campaigns for diversified communities, food service industries, small- and mid-size producers, and food entrepreneurs to meet knowledge, policy, language, and technological needs. Within her work, she is comfortable in supporting clients with crisis situations (including developing crisis and food safety incidence playbooks and media management), supplier approval programs, and exploring food safety culture analysis & implementation. Her work also explores the impacts and intersections of changing global, environmental, and regulatory impacts on the food and beverage industry.

Lily is a Lead Instructor for the Preventive Controls for Human Foods Rule (v2.0) & HACCP courses. She is an active member with leadership roles in the Conference for Food Protection (CFP), International Association for Food Protection (IAFP), Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), Phi Tau Sigma, and Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers. She is certified in Juice and Meat & Poultry HACCPs, and Better Process Control School, Acidified Foods. She is also a Produce Safety Alliance Trainer, and both an English and Chinese Servsafe Instructor and Proctor.