Dr. Oliver is a 150th Anniversary Professor Chair at Purdue University, Director of the USAID Feed the Future Food Safety Innovation Lab, Sr. Research Fellow at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, a Purdue University Health Equity Champion, and Showalter Fellow. As Director of the Food Safety Innovation Lab, she develops and oversees USAID’s food safety research portfolio currently implemented in Senegal, Kenya, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nigeria, and Nepal. She has over 10 years of food security field experience in low- and middle-income economies. Dr. Oliver’s domestic research focuses on foodborne pathogens in emerging food systems (e.g., cellular agriculture) with an emphasis on practical and feasible control strategies. She teaches food safety, sanitation, and related subjects at Purdue. She has received the United States Department of Agriculture and the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities John Morrill Award, Purdue University Carine Alexander Spirit of the Land-Grant award, the USDA Food and Agriculture Science Excellence in Teaching Award, Purdue University’s highest teaching honor the Charles B. Murphy Teaching Award, the IAFP Young Scientist Award, IAFP James M. Jay Diversity in Food Award, and is a AAAS Leshner Fellow. She completed her Bachelor of Science degrees in Molecular Biology and in Microbiology at the University of Wyoming and received her PhD in Food Science, with minors in Epidemiology and Microbiology, at Cornell University.

Tech diplomacy will be central to democratically meeting future food and nutrition demands, particularly as the global population expands in the most food insecure regions of the world.