Bio for Lorna Zach

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Lorna is currently working as an independent consultant for System Solutions for the Food Industry and is an Associate at the Center for Human Performance and Risk Assessment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The background and experience that Lorna brings to research and engineering projects includes 15 years’ management and staff experience in the food processing and agriculturally related industries, 4 years in environmental consulting and modeling, 9 years in the academic research and teaching area, and 8 years’ experience using formal methods of risk analysis.

Lorna has worked for Pillsbury/Green Giant in the US and Mexico, as well as Procter & Gamble, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, the Wisconsin State Department of Natural Resources, and Alpine Dairy Products, Ltd., a New Zealand Dairy Co-operative and she has consulted for a variety of corporate clients including the Auckland Regional Council, TranzRail, and Tova Industries, among others. Lorna has a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and a BS in chemical engineering and an MS in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lorna has worked on such major risk-related events as pesticide contamination of milk, microbial contamination of a spray dry milk plant, the E. coli O157:H7 risk assessment, as well as sprout seed and fresh produce bans and the risk-bond estimate for the Auckland Regional sewage treatment plant, process operations for locally produced food, traceability in the food chain, and import safety. She lived in New Zealand for 14 years and among other things, worked for a dairy co-operative on the South Island as the Technical Manager for three sites with an annual operating budget of one million dollars. In addition to process plant and laboratory oversight, this position included supervision over farm quality assurance and support. Over her career, she has worked in a variety of areas including Research & Development, engineering design and installation, management at the plant level, government regulation, consulting, and she has authored several papers and is currently co-editing a book on import safety. She is currently a member of Society for Risk Analysis, the New Zealand Society for Risk Management, and the Institute of Food Technologists.