As a Senior Manager, Scientific Affairs, Pat collaborates with industry, standards organizations and regulatory agencies to develop and advance science-based standards, guidance and regulations. Pat oversees the bioMérieux America’s industry validation program for the food, dietary supplement and cannabis segments, designing and implementing validation studies that meet industry requirements. Pat has previously supported AOAC in many roles including as a member of the board of directors for the AOAC Research Institute, two terms on the technical program council, a member of the TDRM executive committee, as the chair for the Quantitative Statistics working group in ISPAM, chair-elect for the AOAC RI Contributing Members Advisory Council and numerous awards committees. Pat has also been an active member of several technical working groups within ISO, IAFP, AHPA, IFSH, and IDFA and currently serves on the MicroVal Technical Committee. Within ISO, Pat holds multiple leadership roles in TC34/SC9 WG3 for the development of standards on method identification (16140-7), validation guidelines for viruses and parasites (16140-8) and the update to microbiology method validation (Amnd. 1 to ISO 16140-2:2016, revision to 16140-2:2016).
Pat’s background includes extensive laboratory experience leading validation and verification studies of microbiology analytical test methods, coordinating more than a 100 validations studies following AOAC, ISO, Health Canada and EPA guidelines. Pat has also been trained by PJLA as a microbiology auditor for their ISO 17025 accreditation program and served as an accreditation reviewer for A2LA. Pat has presented numerous webinars and at scientific conferences (AOAC, IAFP, MJBiz Con, IFT) on microbiology validation for the food and cannabis industries and served as the primary author for the microbiology chapter (Laboratory Safety and Compliance Testing for Microorganism Contamination) in the Cannabis Laboratory Fundamentals textbook.
Pat holds a BS in microbiology from the Ohio State University and a MS in Food Safety from Michigan State University