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Susan T. Mayne, Ph.D.
Leadership Role
Director - Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)

Biography
Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) since January 2015.

Susan T. Mayne, Ph.D.
Susan T. Mayne, Ph.D.

Susan Mayne is the Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Mayne leads the Center in developing and implementing policies, programs, and initiatives to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe and healthy for consumers, and that food, dietary supplements and cosmetics sold in the U.S. are safe and properly labeled. Under Dr. Mayne’s leadership, CFSAN works to reduce foodborne illness, protect consumers from harmful products, ensure that chemicals in food (if present) are found at levels that are not harmful, conduct and advance scientific research in support of the safety of foods, cosmetics and dietary supplements, and much more.

An internationally recognized public health leader and scientist, Dr. Mayne received a B.A. in chemistry from the University of Colorado. She earned a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences, with minors in biochemistry and toxicology, from Cornell University.

Prior to joining the FDA in January 2015, she spent nearly three decades at Yale University, where she held an endowed chair as the C.-E.A. Winslow Professor of Epidemiology. Her distinguished career there included two leadership positions: Chair of the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Associate Director of the Yale Cancer Center.

Dr. Mayne has conducted extensive research on food, nutrition, and health. She is author or coauthor of nearly 250 scientific publications and her work has been cited more than 17,000 times.

She completed two consecutive terms on the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences, and a five-year term on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Mayne has overseen and implemented several landmark public health policies and initiatives since taking the helm in 2015, including issuing 8 foundational rules and more than 50 guidances to implement the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. Under her leadership, CFSAN has released an updated Nutrition Facts label which included added sugars for the first time, determined that industrially produced trans fats are not generally recognized as safe and thus cannot be added to foods, implemented menu labeling requirements, and issued sodium reduction targets for industry to improve the healthfulness of the U.S. food supply. CFSAN continues to support innovation in the food supply while assuring products are safe and properly labeled; in 2022, CFSAN completed the first pre-market consultation of a human food made from cultured animal cells.

Follow Dr. Mayne on Twitter @DrMayneFDAFood

For more information, visit Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)


 
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