Dr. Marcos X. Sanchez-Plata is an Associate Professor of Global Food Security at Texas Tech University and works at the International Center for Food Industry Excellence (ICFIE). He specializes in food safety and security with a focus on meat and poultry processing and other food commodities. His research focuses on in-plant validation of antimicrobial interventions and their effects on pathogen control, biofilm development, quality and product shelf life of foods, evaluation of the quality and safety implications of new processing technologies and antimicrobial interventions in poultry, and assessment of the effect of selective pressures on the selection of particular pathogen strains and their persistence in food systems. Dr. Sanchez-Plata has a PhD in Food Science and Technology, an MBA in Agribusiness and a Masters of Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a Bachelor's in Food Biochemistry from the Central University of Ecuador.