Kathryn Boor | |
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![]() Boor speaking at the 2016 USDA Ag Outlook Forum | |
Born | |
Academic background | |
Education | Cornell University (BS) University of Wisconsin-Madison (MS) University of California, Davis (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Food Science |
Kathryn J. Boor is an American food scientist and academic administrator. She is a professor of food processing microbiology at Cornell University. From 2020-25,she served as the dean of Cornell University's Graduate School and vice provost for graduate education. [1] and from 2010-20,as the Ronald P Lynch Dean of the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). [2]
Boor was born and raised on a family-owned dairy farm in Chemung County in upstate New York. She obtained a BS in Food Science from Cornell University CALS in 1980,and an MS in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983. Her MS research with Winrock International in Kenya focused on improving human nutrition among limited-resource farmers. She returned to the US and earned a PhD in Microbiology at the University of California,Davis in 1994. [3]
Boor returned to Cornell University in 1994 and became the first tenured female Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science. She established the Food Safety Laboratory and was co-lead for the Milk Quality Improvement Program. [1] Her research focuses on identifying biological factors that affect the transmission of bacteria in food systems. A newly discovered bacterium was named Listeria booriae to honor her work on Listeria monocytogenes, a food-borne pathogen. [4] She was appointed as the Ronald P. Lynch Dean in 2010. [5] As of August 2025,her h-index was 87 and her work had been cited over 20,400 times. [6]