Interview With Dr. Brendan Niemira, Chief Science & Technology Officer, IFT

As of late last year, IFT has a new Chief Science & Technology Officer, Dr. Brendan Niemira. I thought it would be enlightening to have Brendan share his vision on the future for IFT and scientific journals. Please briefly explain your role at IFT, especially as related to the journals. As the Chief Science and Technology Officer, I provide strategic direction and vision for all of IFT's scientific and technical initiatives. This includes all of IFT's technical educational programming, e-learning and business skills training courses, the extensive science content at FIRST (workshops, panels, technical talks, and posters), the Global Food Traceability Center, all of our advocacy and science policy outreach initiatives, and the food science expertise–focused divisions. And, of course, I have strategic oversight over IFT's peer-reviewed scientific publications: The Journal of Food Science and Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety. I work with Amanda Ferguson to provide ongoing operational support and to develop long-range strategic vision for the journals. Please briefly explain your background and how it has prepared you for this role. I have more than 30 years of lab experience as a working bench scientist. Most of my research career was spent with the USDA-ARS, where I was a research food microbiologist and spent more than 10 years as a senior science administrator. My research specialization was on food safety and non-thermal food processing technologies such as cold plasma, irradiation, HPP, and novel sanitizers. I've published more than 200 peer-reviewed research articles, book chapters, and critical reviews, a number of them in JFS and CRFSFS (feel free to look me up on Google Scholar!). For most of my career, I've been a volunteer with IFT, serving in a number of capacities, including as Chair of AMSPAP (Annual Meeting Scientific Program Advisory Panel) and on the IFT Board of Directors. I was elected as a Fellow of IFT in 2023 and joined IFT professionally in 2025. Aside from subject matter expertise in food science, I've had a lot of experience leading diverse teams of talented experts, managing large budgets, high-level science communication, developing strategy, and delivering meaningful content for stakeholders. That's been great preparation for the role of Chief Science and Technology Officer at IFT. You said your vision for JFS is “to further enhance its research, reach, reputation, and respect”. Can you explain what you mean by that and what actions we should take to meet that aim? What would success look like? Thanks to the efforts of you and Ms. Ferguson, along with all of the dedicated experts on the JFS editorial board, JFS is seeing peer recognition and submission rates higher than ever before. The international reach of JFS continues to grow and the journal's reputation as a leading place for cutting edge science has never been brighter. Our goal is to build on that momentum. With higher submission numbers, the journal can draw from a larger pool, with more opportunity to secure and highlight more of the rare gems, those truly impactful and influential studies that can significantly lead the way forward in food science research. At the same time, this provides a critical mass of high-quality material to develop special issues, single-focus collections, and other outputs that can extend the impact of JFS. New members of JFS’ editorial board based internationally have already provided cultural and scientific perspectives that enhance our review process and publication quality. As we continue to build on these actions, this has the potential to connect the journal with food scientists in China and the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Latin and South America, Africa, and Eurasia. While there is no single finish line to mark “success”, the growth of JFS's reputation and reach across the United States and around the globe will be instrumental in helping us to enact IFT's vision of a world where science and innovation are connected and universally accepted as essential to improving food for everyone. What changes do you think are imminent for scholarly publishing and how should we be preparing for what the future brings? There is a continued pressure for journals to provide financial returns. Coming at a time when research funding is at risk, this presents a challenging time for scholarly publishing. Also, the rapid growth of AI is something we have to stay on top of. Every week, AI tools get better at generating persuasive, compelling text and images. While we want food scientists to be able to take advantage of the power of these tools, it is absolutely critical that peer-reviewed manuscripts submitted to JFS represent original experiments and real data, that is, real science. Every scientific journal has had occasions to deal with issues of potential misrepresentation in graphs, figures, images, or interpretive text. It goes against the ethical underpinnings of science, yet it is getting easier and easier to do while getting harder and harder to detect. JFS, like all peer-reviewed journals, is implementing tools to respond to the changing landscape of AI. Anything else you can think of that our readers would be interested in knowing? I am honored to be able to serve as IFT's Chief Science and Technology Officer, and to support the continued excellence of JFS and CRFSFS. I look forward to working with you and Ms. Ferguson to grow and enhance these journals as a critical resource for food scientists around the world. Thanks to Brendan for these responses. We look forward to working together to reach our goals. If anyone has thoughts, comments, or responses, please send them to me at email protected, and I will share them in my monthly editor message. Sincerely, Richard Hartel, PhD Editor in Chief, Journal of Food Science Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison