Sometimes the role of food safety in human health is like detective work my research and teaching focuses on food safety for better public health.

and all around the world, the group that is the most vulnerable to food contamination are children under the age of five, 2021, it was found that in infant food that was pulled off of grocery shelves around the United States, there were extremely high levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury higher than is allowable in our drinking water.

And so the question was, is the impact of these heavy metals on infant and child health?

Ever since then, our research team has been working in the area of how to remove heavy metals in our food supply.

there are certain methods that we can use in the field that would prevent crops such as rice, from taking up as much arsenic.

Usually when we produce rice, we produce it in a flooded paddy fields And unfortunately, when the ground is wet and soggy like that, then arsenic is very easily taken up from the soil into the rice However, there is a method of production called alternate wetting drying in which the paddy might be flooded at first, but then it's allowed to dry and under dry conditions, the rice is much less likely to take up any arsenic that's in the soil.

So it really is a win win win situation that the farmers are using less water, so they're paying less And third, there's less arsenic in our rice.

In humans is difficult to control, but in with animals you can control, you know, various parameters, What is the food?

When you're teaching you get excited, when they become excited by what you're teaching them.

You become more motivated to do work that really has an impact on the world.

The intersection of human health, food safety, water safety, the environment is a really exciting place in which to work.

And that's what I teach my students at MSU as well.

It means a lot to me to be named a University Distinguished Professor at MSU.

I think many of us do sometimes feel what's known as imposter syndrome.

I want to do work to be able to teach at a level that actually does improve students understanding of different areas of research, their enthusiasm for certain topics related to food science, and to do work that really has an impact to the people of Michigan, to the United States, and to the world as a whole.

And when MSU named me a University Distinguished Professor I thought, okay, I feel so happy about that that maybe my work in these last ten years has had an impact and that's meant so much to me.