Professor Ken Lee is the Food Safety Center Director at Ohio State. This center advances the food safety mission by commercialization of food safety technologies. Lee is a co-investigator with a six college Public Health Preparedness initiative, a $4.7M Targeted Investment in Excellence by OSU.

Lee is a respected leader in the field of food science with 16 years experience as an academic department chair. He served on the Board of Directors and chaired several initiatives of the food science professional society, IFT. OSU selected Dr. Lee as a professional media contact, providing expertise on food safety for Fox News, CBS News This Morning and ABC News. He taught the first course at UW-Madison to be broadcast live on cable television. His experience in facility design includes a $4M addition to UW-Madison’s Babcock Hall and a $17.2M food science building at OSU. The latter featured a successful development campaign that raised $6M for facilities and an additional $6M for faculty and student initiatives.

 Dr. Lee provides leadership in food industry issues as past-president of the Food Update Foundation, as Food Industries Center Interim Director. Federal appointments included the FDA’s Food Advisory Committee, subcommittee on food toxicants and contaminants and prior service to the NAS-NRC Doctoral Review Planning Committee. Dr. Lee has experience in leadership of a tripartite, industry-government-academic alliance through presidency of the Food Update Foundation. He helps advance food safety training as the PI of an Ohio Board of Regents award providing doctoral stipends for “Solving Critical Food Safety Needs.” He published 45 papers on nutrient inhibitors and food toxicants. He is an articulate academic speaker and delivered the December 7, 2001 Commencement address, the first graduating class post 9/11 joining a nation at war. In 2007 the Institute of Food Technologists awarded him the Carl Fellers award for bringing distinction to the profession of food science.