Joseph Capobianco is a research Materials Engineer at the United States Department of Agriculture and a member of the Molecular Characterization of Foodborne Pathogens Research Unit. This team is actively engaged in research focused on addressing current unmet needs in food safety; specifically developing novel processes for rapid and cost effective sample preparation along with field portable detection methods for identifying foodborne pathogens. The research is directed toward implementation of on-line or near real-time detection and/or typing technologies to be used by regulatory agencies and the food industry to prevent contaminated food from reaching the marketplace.