Cary Frye leads the association's regulatory team covering the areas of food safety, food defense, federal standards of identity, labeling, international Codex Alimentarius standards, nutrition policy, environmental and worker safety. With extensive experience in dairy product processing and quality assurance, Frye has served IDFA member companies for almost 20 years, representing member companies on food labeling and standards of identity, ingredient technologies, nutrition and health issues, and product safety.

She is active on domestic and international regulatory issues. As an active participant of the International Dairy Federation, Frye chairs the United States affiliate to IDF and is a member of the IDF Standing Committee on Standards of Identity and Labeling. She has been active in international standard-setting, advising U.S. delegations on Codex standards and has served as the head delegate for IDF at the Codex Committee on Food Labeling. She has also served on the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments’ Executive Board and Liaison Committee, and chairs the Conference’s Program Committee.

Her work has been published in professional journals and textbooks, including "Dairy Processing and Quality Assurance" and "Manufacturing Yogurt and Fermented Milks," published by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing and “Beverage Impacts on Health and Nutrition,” published by Humana Press.

Kathie Canning, editor-in-chief of Dairy Foods, is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience in the trade publication sector. Her experience includes leadership positions on a number of food and beverage publications for both processor and retail audiences. She is a graduate of the University of Toledo and is also certified as an Editor in the Life Sciences by the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences.

Christina Adams is a leader in McKinsey & Company’s consumer goods practice, with deep experience across commercial optimization, growth strategy, and optimizing portfolio and network complexity. She regularly looks at topics relating to how food and beverage consumer goods companies can adapt and grow in the changing consumer and retail landscape.

Christina started her career at Procter & Gamble working in brand management in Cincinnati, Ohio. Christina earned both her B.A. and M.B.A. from Harvard University. She is a native Oklahoman.

Sarah manages the Product & Process Development Team, working intimately with food entrepreneurs and small to mid-sized food companies to help them create foods and beverages focusing on specialty foods across the Northwest. Sarah has over 30 years of experience working in the food industry including quality control and assurance, research and development, product scale-up, ingredient sourcing, ideation, product evaluation, nutrition database labeling and label review. Sarah also teaches entrepreneurial classes at the FIC, across the U.S. and internationally.

Tyler Malek is the co-founder and head ice cream maker at Salt & Straw.

Janet Helm, MS, RDN is the chief food and nutrition strategist for Weber Shandwick, a global public relations firm. She is a blogger at Nutrition Unplugged, and co-founder of the Nutrition Blog Network and Healthy Aperture. Janet is the co-author of the Academy's practice paper on social media and has conducted numerous workshops on social media for dietetics practitioners. She's the co-author of The Food Lover’s Healthy Habits Cookbook, blogs for U.S. News & World Report, and has contributed to multiple publications, including the Chicago Tribune and Cooking Light.

Originally from La Habra, CA., Scott A. Rankin is Professor and Chair of the Food Science Department and recipient of the William F. Vilas Trust Estate Award at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Rankin earned degrees from Brigham Young University and Oregon State University. He leads programs in dairy manufacturing, covering such topics as milk pasteurization, cleaning and sanitizing, dairy chemistry, and frozen desserts while conducting research on reaction chemistry. Dr. Rankin is the recipient of numerous awards including the Eckelman Foundation Fellowship; Society of Flavor Chemists Memorial Fellowship; Invention of the Year Finalist; Award of Honor for Outstanding Contribution to Cooperative Extension Service, the ADSA Foundation Scholar award; the ADSA Foundation Food Specialties award, and Brigham Young University Alumni Achievement Award. He also served as president of the American Dairy Science Association (2013/14) and the Federation of Animal Science Societies.

Successfully navigating the detailed and often complex regulatory issues confronting the food industry, Elizabeth Fawell helps companies understand both the rules and various risks involved to make the most informed and strategic decisions.

Elizabeth has worked with every segment of the food industry, including manufacturers, distributors, retailers, restaurants, and food service operators, as well as their trade associations.

Her work on behalf of food industry clients with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) since its inception and her understanding of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems provides her with the experience and perspective needed to counsel clients on how to comply with new requirements under the law. Elizabeth is also a Preventive Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI) and has completed the FSPCA PCQI training.

Elizabeth understands how laws, regulations, and guidance documents are developed, interpreted, and enforced. Her extensive knowledge enables clients to prevent or respond to enforcement actions such as Warning Letters, Import Alerts, and agency investigations. She helps clients in determining whether an RFR report is necessary and whether a recall is warranted. If so, she helps manage the recall to minimize business impacts.

Elizabeth provides real-time advice during factory inspections, helps clients prepare 483 responses, and drafts inspection manuals. She assists clients in lawfully and creatively promoting their products; such as the development of labels, claims, and website and promotional campaigns. Elizabeth also supports clients in advertising disputes and with responses to FTC and Attorney General investigations.

Elizabeth helps clients stay informed of and ahead of public policy issues and develops strategies for effective advocacy before regulators. She also counsels clients on compliance with Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) safety standards, testing and certification requirements, and reporting obligations.

Elizabeth is also a member of the Food and Dietary Supplements Committee of the Food and Drug Law Institute.

Ami Patel directs product at Ripe.io to help connect valuable food system stakeholders through data and build the blockchain of food for a more transparent food quality network. Ripe.io aims to digitize the food value chain and empower people to make confident choices in the food they eat, grow, and sell.

Caleb Wagner has worked as a Food Technologist at Agropur Ingredients for 4 years, specializing in new frozen dessert mix development. He is involved with the development process from new product inception all the way to the first industrial run of product. Caleb has helped launch or improve upon a wide range of frozen dessert concepts including dairy-based, plant-based, and specialty nutrition products. Caleb holds a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. Furthermore, he is nearly finished with his M.S. in Food Science from Kansas State, where gracious support from his employer has allowed him to pursue a full thesis research option while gaining real-world experience.

In his free time, Caleb enjoys a plethora of stimulating actives: reading, hunting, hiking, riding motorcycles, fixing his truck, strategic board-gaming, and hanging out with his wife and 2 cats.

An accomplished CPG professional with a diverse set of experiences selling and marketing to the food industry, Jon Vander Woude has a specific focus on the ice cream and novelty categories.

He has held key roles in ice cream and novelty brand development at Dean Foods. He also functioned as a Food Broker representing many ice cream and novelty brands, including Unilever’s portfolio.

In addition to his adept understanding of the category, he has insights into the manufacturing and retail landscape across the US.

As the Vice President of Marketing at Denali Ingredients, he merges his experience with consumer trends and data and collaborates with Denali’s R&D Team in the development of relevant new ingredients.

Karen Garcia is a senior sensory specialist at Symise, Inc.

Dr. Gendel works to protect the integrity of the food supply as the Senior Director for Food Science at the Food Chemicals Codex (published by the US Pharmacopeia, an independent non-profit standards development organization). In this role, he is responsible for a group that creates food ingredient standards and guidance documents, participates in international organizations such as the Codex Alimentarius and ISO, and collaborates with industry and governments internationally. He has over 30 years of experience in food safety and policy, including positions at the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Harvard University, the University of Toronto, and Iowa State University. He has over 90 publications and numerous presentations.

Michelle Albee Matto is a registered dietitian with expertise in the areas of dairy food labeling, food regulation and nutrition policy. Her work focuses on dairy product standards of identity, food labeling, the federal nutrition programs, food allergens, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In 2010, she started her own consulting business, AM Food & Nutrition.

Before 2012, Matto worked for the International Dairy Foods Association for eight years, most recently serving as the assistant director of nutrition and regulatory affairs. She has also worked at that Food Research and Action Center in Washington, D.C. She received her bachelor of science in nutrition at Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y. and her master of public health degree in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Matto is a member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the Institute of Food Technologists and is a past board member of the Washington D.C. chapters of the Institute of Food Technologists and the Society for Nutrition Education.

Dr. Réglat obtained a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the École Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada), in 1997, where he contributed to the development of new technologies for process viscosity measurement.

During 17 years, Dr. Réglat participated in numerous projects in wide variety of industries (dairy, beer, cosmetics, oils …). Passionate about fluid mechanics, he used his knowledge and know-how to provide innovative solutions for the in-line viscosity measurement.

He joined KROHNE Inc. in 2013, and now acts as Food and Beverage Industry Manager, to provide with his team creative and progressive instrumentation solutions to the food and beverage industry.

Lorenzo Datei is one of the 3 partners of PACKINT CHOCOLATE MACHINES and ROCKGATE GROUP. He as a master degree in Mechanical Engineering Robotics and Automation, his dissertation about a Chocolate Ball Mill has been published by the Journal of Food Engineering and cited in many other papers and in Industrial Chocolate Manufacture and Use, the sacred book of chocolate making. He started his career as technical person, installing chocolate plants all over the world, programming PLC-HMI systems, teaching chocolate technology and recipes to customers and designing new machines. In 2007 he started taking care about sales for North, Central, South America. In 2014 he founded Packint's American branch with a complete pilot plant near NYC. A part Italian, he also fluently speaks English, Spanish, French and Russian. He eats daily at least 3oz of chocolate.

John Allan directs all aspects of IDFA's food safety training initiatives, leads efforts related to product safety issues and has responsibilities in federal and state regulatory affairs. He engages on behalf of IDFA members with 3-A Sanitary Standards, Inc., and the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS). Allan also helps represent IDFA’s international trade interests through his seat on the U.S. Department of Agriculture/U.S. Trade Representative Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) for Trade of Processed Foods, as well as through engagement with the International Dairy Federation and the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex).

Prior to joining IDFA, Allan was the director of regulatory and international affairs for the National Yogurt Association, the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) and AFFI’s affiliated associations: the National Frozen Pizza Institute, Frozen Potato Products Institute and the Frozen Food Foundation.

Allan also has regulatory and technical affairs experience in the infant formula industry and has worked for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization helping develop Codex international food standards. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science in microbiology and a Master of Science in food science and technology.