Pauline Spagnoli is a food scientist, passionate about food safety management. This is proved by her academic and professional career.
In 2020, she graduated magna cum laude from Ghent University as a Master of Science in Bioscience Engineering Technology: Food Industry. For her master’s thesis (“Monitoring of food integrity in food processing plants”), she further expanded her knowledge and did research about food fraud and food integrity. This was her first real experience with the human factor of food safety.
Her next step was to dive into the industry itself. She worked as a R&D and Quality manager in a chocolate producing company, starting from her graduation until February 2021. Here she developed valuable skills and knowledge from practical experience. This also gave her insights in the areas of food safety, in which the industry still has room for improvement.
This motivated her to start her PhD research at Ghent University in February 2021. Her research focusses on food safety culture, the human dimension of food safety. As this is interdisciplinary research, she works together with supervisors from different backgrounds: Prof. Liesbeth Jacxsens who specializes in Food Safety Management, and Prof. Peter Vlerick, specialized in Organizational Psychology. For her PhD, she also takes part in a project in which Belgian food companies participate to learn more about and improve their food safety culture. Her main goal is to generate validated intervention strategies for food processing companies concerning food safety culture.
