Dr. Marks receives the 2017 William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award
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EmailBradley Marks receives 2017 William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award
Bradley Marks is internationally known for leading a successful interdisciplinary research team focused on the microbial safety of ready-to-eat food products. An engineer by training, Marks has expanded his expertise to food microbiology and predictive modeling to meet the challenges of reducing foodborne disease outbreaks in meats, fresh-cut fruits and vegetables and low-moisture foods. In particular, his work is renowned for modeling the inactivation of foodborne pathogens and improving methods for the design, operation and validation of pathogen reduction processes for manufactured food products. His research lays the foundation for processing standards used by federal and state regulators of the processing industry.
Marks’ research has been continuously supported for more than twenty-three years by federal competitive grants, industry support and state and internal funding sources, including the USDA. He has written more than eighty-one referenced journal articles and has more than 270 total publications and presentations at national and international conferences.
Marks is well-known for his conscientious mentoring of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty colleagues, with former students employed throughout the U.S. food industry. One recent graduate wrote, “Dr. Marks was, by far, the most critical influence on my professional life due to his leadership skills and passion to see his students succeed.” Marks has taught twelve distinct courses over the past twenty-one years, including seven that he developed at the freshman, junior, senior and graduate levels. His unbounded enthusiasm for teaching has led to nine teaching awards at the department, college and national level, including four Withrow Teaching Awards, the MSU Teacher-Scholar Award, and a national teaching award from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. Under his departmental leadership as the undergraduate program coordinator, undergraduate enrollment has tripled over the past decade.
It is rare for a faculty member at a research-intensive university to attain such a consistently outstanding record of achievement in all three of the land-grant missions of teaching, research and service. Marks has not only accomplished this feat but has received awards in each of these categories at the local, regional and national levels.
To read about other faculty members who have earned this award, visit http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/2017-william-j-beal-outstanding-faculty-awards/
