CPS research generates science that works in the real world in part because we bring researchers together with industry, to achieve better research design. That, in turn, depends on industry stepping forward to help.
Vic Smith is one such industry leader. Smith’s JV Smith Companies is a major contributor to CPS, and he serves on our Board of Directors. Moreover, he actively helps make CPS research happen. For example, in 2018 he set aside land for CPS researchers to study romaine production (results due in 2019). In 2010 he supported rapid response research to help researchers evaluate intrusion risk posed by wildlife (findings here). That’s dedication.
“Center for Produce Safety has done an excellent job to connect researchers with industry partners, which makes our research more relevant to industry. The industry‘s collaboration on and enthusiasm about our project was the key to our success. The actual commercial processing is far more complex than what we originally thought; being able to see things in real situation and getting feedback from people who work there every day really helped us to modify our experimental approaches to better simulate commercial processing. We are grateful for the industry to generously provide samples for our research, and share their industry knowledge and needs with us.”
Xiuping Jiang Ph.D.