Dr. Lily Yang, Associate of Food Safety, is an enthusiastic and collaborative science communicator. She is a food safety culture specialist focused on the impacts of consumer and stakeholder attitudes, behaviors, and technological utilization within the food system. Her food safety approach is through scientific and cultural inclusivity, literacy, accessibility, and capacity-building to nurture trust and bridge knowledge gaps 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 over 6 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. Her research interests include evaluating technology readiness levels for emerging food processing technologies, natural language processing (and big data mining) applicable to food safety and the food system, and understanding the adoption and utilization of smart farm innovations.

Lily is a Lead Instructor for the Preventive Controls for Human Foods Rule, a reviewer on the Journal of Food Protection editorial board, an active member with leadership roles of 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.