Dr. Matthew J. Stasiewicz is an Associate Professor of Applied Food Safety at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. He graduated with a degree in Biosystems Engineering from Michigan State University and then obtained his MS and PhD in Food Science from Cornell University. Dr. Stasiewicz applies new tools in genomics and data science to food safety microbiology. He develops methods to identify when bacterial pathogens persist in food-associated environments and to clean corn that has been contaminated with toxins produced by fungi. His work takes global strides toward building risk-based food safety systems.