Dr. Gloria Essilfie (nee Tetteh) is a Food Microbiologist who has also specialized in Postharvest Technology.  She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Crop Science, University of Ghana leading programmes in postharvest especially postharvest food safety and quality assurance.  She has spent over 20 years in research for development activities as well as in academia.  She has experience working in African countries on multi-national projects. Prior to joining the University of Ghana, Dr. Essilfie worked with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) where she worked on the Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Program which was piloted in 8 countries and its results have been successfully scaled out across the continent.  She has successfully led projects as PI or Co-PI and also has over 13 years’ experience supervising postgraduate research work in Postharvest technology and Postharvest food safety. Dr. Essilfie is currently the Institutional Champion as well as a Mentor for the FSNet-Africa Project in the University of Ghana, collaborating with University of Pretoria and University of Nairobi.  She is also the Team Lead for Agrifood systems and Nutrition at the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement in the University of Ghana (a 3.5 million USD project).  She was a trainer for the Africa Biosafety Network of Expertise on a project which was a collaboration between MSU and NEPAD.  She trained regulators, lawyers and Judges on food safety assessments in Crops derived from Genetical Modified Organisms.  Her research interests are in the adaptation and assessment of low-cost preservative technologies to reduce postharvest loss in agricultural commodities.  Her specific interest focusses on the use of locally available materials such as cassava starch, beeswax, coconut oil, shea butter etc as edible coating on horticultural produce to maintain quality and extend shelf life as well as the use of locally built evaporative coolers to extend shelf life of horticultural produce. Her work also spans across using various technologies such as freezing, drying, fermentation etc to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.  Another area of interest is in the development of management and intervention strategies that may be applied to eliminate or control pathogenic contamination in fruits and vegetables.  She has consulted on postharvest and postharvest food safety projects for both local and international organizations such as the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), CTA and the Government of Ghana.  She is currently leading the assessment of the postharvest loss status in 9 commodities in Ghana.  Dr. Essilfie holds a doctorate degree in Food Science specializing in Food Microbiology from the University of Georgia, Athens, USA, an M. Phil in Food Science from University of Ghana and a Bachelor’s degree in Food Science and Nutrition also from the University of Ghana.  She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Vegetable Crops, University of California, Davis, focusing on postharvest food safety of vegetable crops.  She is a member of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), the International Association of Food Protection (IAFP) and the Africa Continental Association of Food Protection (ACAFP).