Dr. Alejandro Castillo is associate professor in the Department of Animal Science. He is also Chair of the Graduate Faculty of Food Science. Castillo received a bachelor’s in biology and pharmacy in 1977, a specialty diploma in sanitary microbiology in 1980, and a master’s in food microbiology and hygiene in 1987 from the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. In 1998, he received a doctorate in food science and technology from Texas A&M University and completed a postdoctoral stay at Texas A&M in 1999, working on food microbiology. Before joining the TAMU faculty in 2002, Dr. Castillo was a professor in the Department of Biology and Pharmacy at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. He also has been a guest professor at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the University of Guatemala Valley, Guatemala and the University of Central America in Nicaragua. At these universities, he taught graduate courses on various topics of food safety. Dr. Castillo’s research interests include the development of control measures for minimizing and reducing pathogens in fresh and fresh-cut food products, the bacterial reduction on beef and pork products and fresh produce by sanitizing rinses and the use of electron beam irradiation for food safety purposes. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, has authored or co-authored six book chapters and has published two books as editor. He teaches the graduate course in Microbiology of Foods and co-teaches the HACCP stacked course. Dr. Castillo has been a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Food Protection and was the Texas A&M representative on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Food Safety and Security until the dissolution of this Alliance in 2010. He is an active member of the International Association for Food Protection and the Mexico Association for Food Protection. He is also a member of the Institute of Food Technologists.

Meat Science