Dear Friends,

Greetings from Cornell Food Science!

The summer has been a very productive time for of all of us, with faculty and students attending many professional meetings, conducting research projects and enjoying the nice, warm (and sometimes wet) weather in Ithaca and Geneva. Our wonderful new building has been very busy with hundreds of visitors, including the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who after tasting Cornell's chocolate milk said "That was the best chocolate milk I have ever tasted". Many visitors are looking to savor their favorite ice cream, as we are producing an array of flavors to satisfy all preferences in our state-of-the-art dairy plant. Speaking of dairy, our extension group has been doing an excellent job training people from the dairy industry through our certificate program.

We are excited to welcome the new Food Science students for the 2014-2015 academic year. We are delighted to have 18 graduate and 38 undergraduate students (23 freshman and 15 transfer) joining us this year, bringing new talent and fresh ideas into our programs. Furthermore, we are recruiting for two academic positions in the department: a Lecturer in Enology and an Assistant Professor of Dairy Fermentations with a 50% research/50% extension appointment. We will be interviewing candidates for these positions during the fall semester and expect to have the new faculty members join us in 2015.

We have just launched our Cornell Institute for Food Systems (CIFS) Industry Partnership Program, a new initiative to work collaboratively with leading industry partners. We will have the first CIFS Global Summit focused on Public-private Partnerships to Enhance Food Systems on December 8, 2014 in Stocking Hall. Anyone interested is welcome to attend, more information in this newsletter.

The renovation of Stocking West (the landmark 4-story building on Wing Drive) is progressing well and thanks to Matt Stratton's updates, we can visualize the changes that are happening over time. We are looking forward to moving into Stocking West in May of 2015 and to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the completely renovated building shortly after. We hope to see most of you at this wonderful event; in the meantime if you have the opportunity to come and visit us, we will be happy to give you a tour of the new facilities and to enjoy Cornell ice cream (or chocolate milk) with you!

Summer was an exciting time for the department as after several months of planning we launched the new Industry Partnership Program (IPP) in conjunction with the Cornell Institute for Food Systems (CIFS). CIFS-IPP is a public-private partnership with a farm-to-fork focus, which engages with industry members throughout the food system. By working through the institute, CIFS-IPP makes available to industry members the ability to consult with over 60 Cornell University Faculty Fellows from more than a dozen disciplines.  Technical areas of expertise range from crop and soil sciences to animal science and food science, to a variety of engineering areas of expertise, and finally to corporate management and consumer behavior, thereby leveraging the unique synergy of our multidisciplinary perspectives. CIFS-IPP provides members with priority access to faculty and allows for easy engagement with students and facilities. Our CIFS-IPP members are afforded access to a variety of services geared to enhancing their interactions with our award-winning undergraduate and graduate student bodies. In addition, multiple facilities are available for product processing needs in the dairy and fruit and vegetable areas, as well as processing authority resources. CIFS-IPP launched at IFT and is actively engaged in enrolling new corporate members.

On December 8, 2014, CIFS will host the first annual Cornell Food Systems Global Summit at the recently renovated Stocking Hall on the Ithaca, New York Campus. This will be an opportunity to hear provocative, forward-thinking speakers address the value of progressive public-private partnerships in an era of constrained resources and the global need to feed 9 billion people by 2050.

In short, CIFS-IPP strives to find solutions to today's food system challenges and to shape tomorrow's discoveries through collaborative efforts. More information can be found by visiting our website at www.ipp.cifs.cornell.edu or calling Dr. Julie Stafford, Industry Liaison Officer, at 607-255-0860, jls653@cornell.edu.