IAFP 2025 Call for Symposia, Roundtables, and Workshops

Sep 10, 2024

The International Association for Food Protection is accepting submissions for symposia and roundtables for IAFP 2025 to be held in Cleveland, Ohio,July 27–30. The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, October 1, 2024. No late submissions will be accepted. Proposals must be submitted using the online submission program located on the IAFP website at www.foodprotection.org.

Submissions are also being accepted for IAFP 2025 Pre-Meeting Workshops to be held July 25 and July 26 in Cleveland. The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, October 1, 2024.

With a reputation for quality content, the IAFP Annual Meeting features more than1,100 technical,
poster and symposia presentations detailing current information on a variety of topics relating to food safety. The quantity and quality of presentations provide information on the latest methods and technologies available. Top industry, academic, and government food safety professionals attend each meeting. This broad mix of more than 3,500 attendees representing more than 50 countries around the world includes professionals in quality control, processing operations, regulatory inspections, consulting groups, risk assessment, research and development, food toxicology, microbiological research, plant management, technical services, and HACCP management.

The abstract deadline for poster and technical presentations is Tuesday, January 14, 2025.

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.