December 9th, 2020   |   10 am EST    

Heavy metals, mycotoxins, lead pigment in paprika powder... Food contaminants can show up in our food supply in many places. This webinar will present an overview of recent developments in food contaminants regulations around the world, focusing on the rapidly developing area of pesticide regulations.

Our Subject Matter Experts Dr. Karen Everstine, Adrian Varela, and Christie Gray will review various approaches to regulating pesticides with a focus on the EU and Latin American countries.

We will also provide an overview of naming conventions and discuss recent changes in regulatory requirements related to pesticides. The webinar will provide an overview of various tools that can be used to track regulations and regulatory limits, emerging issues, and alerts about pesticide residues and other contaminants.

Attendees will be equipped with up-to-date information on evolving regulations and an in-depth overview of tools that are available to help you ensure regulatory compliance and receive timely updates on emerging issues.

You will have the opportunity to query our experts in a Q&A session.

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Dr. Karen Everstine

Senior Manager, Scientific Affairs - Decernis, a FoodChain ID company

Karen is Senior Manager, Scientific Affairs with Decernis – a FoodChain ID company. Decernis delivers technology-enabled global risk management solutions for product development, safety and regulatory compliance, and market access. Karen has worked in food protection for more than fifteen years, primarily supporting the food industry in ensuring food authenticity and compliance with regulatory and GFSI food fraud requirements. She leads food fraud initiatives at Decernis, including the Food Fraud Database, a resource that standardizes relevant data to support vulnerability assessments. She previously held both research-based and applied roles in academia, government, and non-profit organizations, and has collaborated with members of the food industry and regulatory agencies on many projects. She received her PhD and MPH from the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota and began her food safety career as a foodborne disease epidemiologist at the Minnesota Department of Health.

Adrian Varela

Assistant Director, Regulatory Affairs - Decernis

Adrián Varela joined Decernis in 2012, working first as a Junior Researcher focused on Latin American countries, then as a Senior Researcher and Team leader for the Americas.  In addition, Adrian has been a Project Manager for several special projects covering the Latin American region. Adrian was recently promoted to Director of Regulatory Affairs in September 2020, managing the different regional teams of researchers in Decernis. Mr. Varela also works closely with Kevin Kenny, the CEO of Decernis, and has accompanied Mr. Kenny to various conferences throughout Europe and Washington DC in recent years.

Currently Mr. Varela is based in Madrid and works closely with the Decernis European teams. He is a graduate of a degree program in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Valladolid (Spain), and he has continued his studies at the University of Salzburg (Austria), the Institut Libre Marie Haps (Brussels, Belgium), and the University of Florence (Italy). He is now studying a master's degree on Food Technology in the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Mr. Varela is a native speaker of Spanish and is also fluent in English, French, Portuguese and Italian. His professional background has always been focused on International relationships, through his experiences in the Consulate body of Florence (Italy) collaborating with the Consulate of Spain, Mexico and Burkina Faso, together with the Association Italy-Kuwait and the Court of Florence as sworn translator.

Christie Gray

Director of Quality - Decernis

Christie Gray is the Director of Quality for Decernis, LLC, an international regulatory compliance consulting firm based in Washington, DC.  As Director of Quality, she is responsible for providing regulatory expertise and managing systems for food product compliance across over 200 countries. Additionally, Christie is the subject matter expert on animal and human contaminants and maintains our databases covering over 200 countries. Decernis has staff located around the world who are fluent in many different languages to provide regulatory compliance consulting services to clients who manufacture and/ or export food products around the world. 

Prior to working with Decernis, Christie worked as a food regulatory compliance subject matter expert for Deloitte & Touche LLP and a Manager of Science Policy for Food Labeling and Standards with the Grocery Manufacturers Association. Christie has a B.S. in Human Nutrition and Foods from Virginia Tech and a M.S. in Food Technology from the University of Georgia.