UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Edward Dudley, assistant professor of food science in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, has been named to the Lester Earl and Veronica Casida Career Development Professorship for Food Safety.

The professorship, which is reserved for outstanding faculty in the Department of Food Science’s Food Safety Group, is designed to provide critical financial support and encouragement at the start of the awardee’s academic career, allowing fledgling faculty to direct important initial energies to the classroom. Earl Casida, Penn State professor emeritus of microbiology, and his wife, Veronica, endowed the professorship in 2002.

Dudley holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Penn State, a master’s degree in food science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctorate in bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He served a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland-Baltimore’s Center for Vaccine Development, where he studied enteroaggregative Escherichia coli (EAEC) -- a human pathogen similar to E. coli O157:H7 -- and mechanisms of pathogenesis, virulence gene regulation and genomic diversity.

Since joining Penn State’s faculty in 2007, his research has focused on molecular biology and genomic approaches to understanding the survival and transmission of pathogens within the farm environment and the food supply, and the mechanisms by which these organisms cause disease. He also has academic standing with Penn State’s graduate programs in immunobiology and pathobiology, and with the Penn State Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease.

“It is a great honor to accept the Casida Career Development Professorship,” Dudley says. “Support of this type is important for helping new faculty members build competitive research programs and provide the best training for graduate and undergraduate students in the College of Agricultural Sciences. I thank the Casida family for their continued support of the Penn State community.”

Before joining the Penn State faculty in 1957, Casida worked for Abbott Laboratories, Pabst Laboratories and Charles Pfizer and Co., where he developed and patented the first commercial fermentation process in the production of L-lysine, an amino acid required in human and animal nutrition. At the university, his teaching and research focused on soil microbial ecology and industrial microbiology. The Casidas’ gifts to Penn State also support a graduate fellowship in microbial food safety in the Department of Food Science, a graduate scholarship in the Department of Plant Pathology, two undergraduate scholarships in the College of Agricultural Sciences and a Penn State Renaissance Scholarship for financially needy students.

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EDITORS: Contact Edward Dudley at 814-867-0439, or by e-mail at egd100@psu.edu.

Writer-Editor: Gary Abdullah 814-863-2708 gxa2@psu.edu