Algorithms for Food Safety Response to Outbreaks of Foodborne Diseases

Foodborne diseases pose a substantial and persistent global challenge as they cause considerable economic and public health damages. As the caused damage increases with the duration of an outbreak, the rapid identification of the contaminated food item and its location source is vital to mitigate their proliferation. To address this, we develop and advance mathematical models to support investigators in outbreak investigations by narrowing down the list of suspicious products and location sources. Enabled by the massive technological advances in the food industry and supply chains these algorithms focus on leveraging emerging data sources.

Sandra Rudeloff joined Kühne Logistics University as a PhD Candidate under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hanno Friedrich and Prof. Dr. Sandra Transchel in September 2020. For the PhD time, her overarching research aim is to support the development of decision support software for outbreak investigations with novel and efficient algorithms. With her research, she contributes to the project "FoodDecide" funded by the BMBF. Sandra holds a B.Sc. in Business Management and Computer Science from a dual study program at Nordakademie Hochschule der Wirtschaft, and a M.Sc. in Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management from the Kühne Logistics University. Her Master thesis "Identifying the Source of Foodborne Diseases using Data on Imports into the United States " was her first deep dive into traceback of foodborne diseases and has sparked her interest in further researching this field.