Beilei Ge

Dr. Beilei Ge is a Research Microbiologist in the Division of Animal and Food Microbiology, Office of Research, at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine in Laurel, Maryland. She received her master’s degree in Food Science and Technology from the Ocean University of China in 1997 and a Ph.D. in Food Science/Food Microbiology from the University of Maryland in 2002. She continued with two-year postdoctoral training on molecular mechanisms of Campylobacter antimicrobial resistance with Dr. Jianghong Meng at the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, University of Maryland.

In September 2004, Dr. Ge joined the Department of Food Science at Louisiana State University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, with a primary research and teaching appointment in food safety. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in July 2010. During her time at LSU (2004-2011), Dr. Ge developed a nationally recognized research program in food safety microbiology, including rapid method development, food surveys, and antimicrobial resistance studies. In September 2011, Dr. Ge joined the FDA as a Principal Investigator leading microbial safety research in animal food.

At the FDA, Dr. Ge’s research has been focused on addressing microbial food and feed safety issues in support of the Center for Veterinary Medicine’s regulatory mission. Specifically, her research group works on developing rapid, reliable, and robust pathogen detection methods in animal food, characterizing phenotypic and genotypic traits of foodborne pathogens and indicator organisms in animal food, evaluating mitigation strategies for pathogen control in animal food, and investigating dynamics of antimicrobial resistance development in foodborne bacteria. Dr. Ge’s research employs traditional microbiological and molecular methods and newer genomic and metagenomics tools.