Individual Members of Cereals & Grains Association were e-mailed an electronic ballot to cast their vote in the 2024 board of directors election. This year's candidates include Lauren Brewer, General Mills, running for president elect and Andreia Bianchini, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for director-at-large. Learn more about the candidates and their vision for the society and then cast your vote. Voting will close on October 3, 2024 (midnight CDT). Elected officials will assume their role at the close of the 2024 Cereals & Grains - Chemistry, Quality, and Technology Conference.
Note if you didn't receive your email ballot, it may have been caught in your server's spam filters. Check Clutter, Junk, Quarantine, etc., and ask your IT department whether it got caught in server firewalls. You can check Survey Monkey's Help page for IPs and domains your IT department can whitelist to ensure you receive it.
Questions? Contact Cereals & Grains headquarters with ballot inquires.
Meet Your Candidates
President-Elect (to serve as President 2025-2026)
Lauren Brewer is a Senior Manager at General
Mills, currently serving as Strategic Advisor for the Innovation, Technology, and Quality function. With eleven years of experience at General Mills, Lauren has worked across a diverse range of businesses, including baking, foodservice, natural and organic, pet, and Mergers & Acquisitions. She is the outgoing Treasurer for the Cereals & Grains Association, a role she has held while remaining an active member for 16 years. Outside of work, Lauren is married to a physical therapist, Adam, and is a busy mom to their toddler, Lilah, and their two furry companions, Florence and Titus.
Leadership Experience and Professional Service
I've been a dedicated member of the Cereals & Grains Association since 2008, starting as a student member and chairing their first student conference. After gaining valuable experience through five internships with different companies, I joined General Mills 11 years ago. Throughout my career, I've remained actively involved with the association, serving as a board member, member of the Foundation, and association treasurer. My commitment to the Cereals & Grains Association reflects my passion for the industry and my desire to contribute to its growth.
Vision Statement
The Cereals & Grains Association stands as a cornerstone of the global food system, dedicated to delivering the science behind 75% of the world's diet. My vision is to guide our organization towards a sustainable future, leveraging the power of our rigorous standards and credible research to meet the evolving needs of our industry and benefit our members.
My leadership style is driven by a deep desire to make the world a better place. There is an urgency to act in our continuously changing environment. Through this change, I'm focused on finding creative solutions and empowering myself and others to grow. Inspired by many leaders in my field and outside of my field, my approach involves defining the playing field, motivating and building up my team, and constantly evolving. I believe in understanding the bigger picture and welcoming innovation to create lasting positive change.
I helped build our strategic goals. If we can fully enact on our focus areas, the Cereals & Grains Association will continue to be a vital resource for the global food system, driving modernization, ensuring food security, and promoting a sustainable future for all.
Director-at-Large (to serve a 2-year term)
Andreia Bianchini is an Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has a B.S. degree in Food Engineering and a M.S. degree in Environmental and Agricultural Microbiology, both from Brazil. Her Ph.D. degree is in Food Science and Technology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. With a strong background in food processing, safety, and security, her area of interest includes the development of quality control mechanisms to ensure food products are safe and of quality. She conducts applied research and provides technical advice, training activities for improvement of safety and quality of food and pet food processes. Recently her research group has focused on improving the safety of grain and grain based products throughout their production and processing chains. She has 46 peer review publications and has contributed 9 book chapters to several textbooks. Dr. Bianchini has advised, or co-advised, 32 graduate students and post-docs and has provided mentorship to more than 55 national and international undergraduate students and fellows seeking training and experience in food safety applied research. She has received many professional awards including the very prestigious Edith A. Christensen Award (Cereal & Grains Association, November 2022) and the Young Scientist Award (American Association of Cereal Chemists International, October 2017). She is a member of the Cereal and Grains Association (CGA), International Association of Food Protection (IAFP), and the Institute of Food Technologists (IFP).
Leadership Experience and Professional Service
Over the years Dr. Bianchini has had the opportunity to serve in many leadership positions in academia (i.e. Task Force, Strategic Planning, Program Development and Delivery), with the food industry (i.e. Advisory Boards) and non-profit organizations (i.e. Board of Directors). More specifically, with the Cereal & Grains Association Dr. Bianchini was the Annual Meeting Program Team Chair in 2020 (Online), Co-Chair in 2019 (Denver, CO), and contributed by organizing workshops and/or symposia in the meetings held in 2018 (London, UK), 2015 (Minneapolis, MN), 2014 (Providence, RI), 2013 (Albuquerque, NM), and 2012 (Hollywood, FL). She is a current member of the Food Safety & Microbiology Technical Committee and has served as Chair/Co-Chair from 2014 until 2022. She has also served as a member of the Check Sample Technical Committee since 2011. Dr. Bianchini has also supported the efforts of Cereal & Grains Association through Task Forces that have led to publications of high importance to the North American grain industry. Worth of mention is her most recent contribution as a book editor for a textbook titled “Food Safety of Grain Based Foods" under production to be released by Elsevier in December 2024.
Vision Statement
Since joining the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in 2010, Dr. Bianchini has strived to develop a research and extension program that is relevant to the cereal and grain industry. Her applied research has concentrated on better understanding and creating innovative solutions for issues faced by the grain industry in the US and internationally, which closely aligns with the broader goals of the Cereal and Grains Association. More specifically, Dr. Bianchini's research program is focused on issues related to incidental contamination of grains and grain-based foods with mycotoxins and pathogenic bacterial contaminants. In partnership with the industry she has helped advance science towards a better understanding of these issues and the development of practical solutions that can be applied by the food industry to address them. And Ceral and Grains Association has played an important role in providing the space for the exchange of information, being a platform for bringing together professionals from academia, grain industry and other private sectors to collaborate in finding solutions not only to food safety issues, but many other societal problems. Therefore, Dr. Bianchini is committed to continue to support and contribute to Cereal & Grains Association, that it may continue to be the best place where the needs of the grain industry are understood, and science-based solutions are created by bringing together all relevant stakeholders.
