Speaker profile
Dennis Keefe
Dennis Keefe is the Director of the Office of Food Additive Safety, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA’s Office of Food Additive Safety is the Agency’s one-stop shop for questions about the safety of food ingredients, food packaging and food processing equipment, including sources of radiation used to treat or inspect food, and foods derived from bioengineered plants.
OFAS is responsible for the premarket review of food additive and color additive petitions, the consideration of independent determinations of GRAS status, and the premarket review of notifications for food contact substances. Dennis joined FDA in 1991 and has served as Office Director since 2011.
From 1995- 2011 he was responsible for the international activities of the Office, especially the Codex Alimentarius, and the Codex Committee on Food Additives (CCFA). In this capacity he was instrumental in the design, development and elaboration of the Codex General Standard for Food Additives. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from St John’s University in Minnesota; a Master of Science degree in Biology and a Doctorate of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.), from The University of Chicago, in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. Prior to joining FDA, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Friedrich-Miesher Institut in Basel, Switzerland.