Catching up with Luisa F. Castro, Ph.D.

Luisa F. Castro was a member of Cohort VIII. At that time, Luisa was the Program Manager for the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s Produce Safety Program, where she helped regulate the safe production of fresh fruits and vegetables and increase the knowledge of and compliance with the FDA Produce Safety Rule throughout the state of Hawaii.

Since completing the Fellowship, Luisa relocated to the Pacific Northwest with her family and has pivoted in her career, currently working as the Policy and Performance Administrator at the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s (WSDA) Food Safety and Consumer Services Division.

Five months after arriving in Washington, the pandemic changed everything and Luisa found herself needing to use her degree in Learning, Design & Technology to better engage with her colleagues who were suddenly thrust into a world of online communication and management. Over the past 18 months, she has been actively involved with a variety of organizations and programs: she became the WSDA Director’s representative for the Washington State Tree Fruit Research Commission; a member of the AFDO Produce Committee; a change agent with Change Management Community of Practice; and a member of the policy committee with the Latino Leadership Network.

Luisa was recently a panel speaker at the Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Conference, where she delivered a presentation titled Bringing Leaders Up from Within Agriculture. She was also featured in the documentary Accidental Host--The Story of Rat Lungworm Disease, which was livestreamed on Sept 25, 2021 as the final presentation of a one-day online UCLA Continuing Medical Education course called Eat, Drink and Be Wary--Modern Foodborne Infections and Food Safety for Savvy Clinicians.

“The IFPTI Fellowship program is a must for those who want to pursue a career in leadership. As a lifelong learner and dedicated civil service employee, the Fellowship provided me with a great deal of practical information about leadership in government, specifically for food protection professionals. Two years after the Fellowship I continue to benefit from the program, from sharing my research project with others, contributing to the growing understanding of the topic, and getting the chance to work with one of my colleagues from Cohort XIII at WSDA.” - Luisa F. Castro, Ph.D.