She obtained her Ph.D. in Food Science from Michigan State University, and her M.S. in Food Science and Technology from Virginia Tech. She has been involved in the area of food safety for the past 12 years, focusing on ethnic food safety for the last 7 years. She is currently teaching graduate and non-credit online courses on food safety and protection of ethnic and imported ethnic foods. She has developed training curricula and food safety programs targeting diverse audiences, as well as developed “A Food Safety Inspectors Guide to Ethnic Foods in Michigan: Mexican and Asian Foods”, a food safety resource funded by the Michigan Department of Agriculture, and utilized by food inspectors in the U.S. For these initiatives, she received the 2007 MSU Extension Diversity Award.