Felicia Wu

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John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in Food Safety, Toxicology, and Risk Assessment & University Distinguished Professor
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition

Phone:
517-432-4442

Email:
fwu@msu.edu

Degrees:
PhD, Carnegie Mellon University
AB, SM, Harvard University

CV:
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Publications on Google Scholar

Selected Publications

Felicia Wu is the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Food Safety, Toxicology, and Risk Assessment at Michigan State University; and President of the Society for Risk Analysis. Recently she was appointed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as a Commissioner of Agriculture and Rural Development for the state of Michigan, and named as one of ten University Distinguished Professors at MSU. Dr. Wu works at the nexus of agriculture, food safety and nutrition, and public health to improve global human health outcomes. Currently she has nine extramural grants with topics ranging from assessing the impact of climate change and transgenic Bt corn production on aflatoxin risks, improving resilience of food systems against shocks, reducing presence of mycotoxins, heavy metals, and pathogens in food crops, and assessing effects of dairy consumption and aflatoxin M1 on Ethiopian children’s health.

Dr. Wu co-chairs the US National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Ethical, Legal, Environmental, Safety, Security, and Societal Issues of Engineering Biology Research & Development. She is the immediate Past President of the Society for Risk Analysis. aDr. Wu is a Member of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), the World Health Organization (WHO) Food-Based Dietary Guidelines Committee, and an elected Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis. She has previously served on a US National Academy of Sciences committee on the future of animal sciences research and as a NASEM speaker on food safety of lab-grown foods. Dr. Wu earned her PhD in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and AB and SM in Applied Mathematics/Medical Sciences at Harvard University.

Research and Outreach Interests

Global burden of disease caused by food contaminants
World food trade and the impact of food safety regulations
Mycotoxins: Economic and health impacts worldwide
Transgenic crops: Mycotoxin reduction, and insect resistance to transgenic pest-protected plants
Risk assessment and risk communication
Social network models and agent-based models applied to population health and trade

Research and Teaching

Fields: Food Safety, Toxicology, Mycotoxins, Food Security, Nutrition, Global Health and the Environment, Agricultural Health, Agricultural Biotechnology, Public Health, Climate Change, Indoor Air Quality

Methods: Mathematical Modeling, Quantitative Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Risk Communication, Economics, Policy Analysis

Courses Taught

FSC 891: Food and Environmental Risk Assessment
FSC 890: Concepts in Agricultural Health
HNF 823: Research Methods in Human Nutrition (guest lecture in Bioinformatics)
CEP 991B: Social Networks
Coca-Cola Webinar on Food Safety Risk Assessment