Merle Pierson was named deputy under secretary for food safety.

Before rejoining USDA, from 1970 until his appointment to this position Pierson was a professor of food microbiology and safety at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va. During his tenure at VPI, he also served as head of the Department of Food Science and Technology from 1985-94 and acting superintendent of the Center for Seafood Extension and Research from 1992-94. From 1998-99 he also served as acting national program leader for food science with the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service at CSREES’s headquarters office in Washington, DC.

Pierson served as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods from 1990-97, and from 1995-97 he chaired that Committee’s Subcommittee on Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), which is a science-based process control system used in managing food safety. During that time the Subcommittee developed the Advisory Committee’s most recent document on HACCP principles and their application. Additionally, he has been actively involved in various capacities with the work of the Codex Alimentarius Commission--an international body that seeks to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair practices in food trade through adoption and implementation, by governments, of food standards, codes of practice, and other guidelines.

A native of Mitchell, S.D., Pierson holds a B.S. degree in biochemistry from Iowa State University and an M.S. and Ph.D. degree, both in food science and both from the University of Illinois.

Caren Wilcox, the previous deputy under secretary for food safety, held that position from November 1997 until January 2001 and is now a Washington, DC-based organizational and strategic consultant for food-related organizations. •