Pablo S. Fernández is a full time professor in the Agronomic Engineering Department since 2009, where he leads the group of Food Safety and Preservation. His research career has focussed on Food safety, quantitative microbial risk assessment and mathematical modelling.

He accounts for more than 30 years of experience in research, leading and taking part in over 40 research projects and contracts (at national and international level). He has produced over 140 scientific publications in the field of microbiological food safety.

This activity led to the supervision of 11 PhD thesis, acting as invited speaker in conferences, Keynote lectures and courses in application of biological risk assessment principles worldwide, for institutions such as FAO in Latin America, the Chilean Food Safety Agency (ACHIPIA) or the Health Ministry of Colombia. He has extensive experience in management of research, as Vice-rector of Research and Innovation (2012-2015) and as Director of the Doctoral School in his University (2015-2020). He is also the Vice-chair of the specialized group (Food Microbiology) of the Spanish Society of Microbiology, since 2018.

The scientific activity over the last years focuses on microbial Food safety, risk assessment methodology applied to foods and the development and use of mathematical tools to describe microbiological behavior. My work has drawn attention as it has been received over 4600 citations by the scientific community and it has been started to be mentioned in social networks. Around 66% of the published work includes international collaborations and more than 80% is published as open access since 2019. He has contributed as evaluator of research projects (national and international ones), research institutes/units and scientific personnel in Spain and abroad.

An important part of his activity has been the development of regulatory science, this is, the use of scientific publications to improve the regulations related to food and feed in the Spanish and European health regulatory bodies.

 He is an expert of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) since 2012, as a member of the BIOHAZ Panel (2012-2018) and as a member of different EFSA working groups, until present. He has also been a member of the scientific committee of the Spanish Food Safety Agency (AESAN) from 2019 to 2023, acting as Vice-president of the committee between 2021 and 2023. He has contributed to several scientific reports as a reply to questions posed by European and Spanish authorities , where he has chaired part of them. They have led to changes in regulations or to the reinforcement of the existing laws applied to food safety. It is worth highlighting the updates of controls of Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods or the approval of the safe list of microorganisms of EFSA, which leads to a reduction in their toxicological evaluation.

Other aspects in this respect are his role as a member of the National Network of Emerging Risks, ascribed to AESAN and that he coordinated a Network of Excellence to develop the structure to perform biological risk assessment and priorization in Spain, which involved 10 Universities, research and technological centres and is currently a member of a new risk assessment Spanish network.

He has contributed as well to the dissemination of science (food safety and risk assessment) to the productive sector, having collaborated in research contracts with food and biotechnological companies (at national and international level), or institutions such as the German Food Safety Authority or EFSA. And contributes actively in the dissemination of science to the society through the University, interviews with media, social media, etc.

Therefore, his background in predictive tools, interaction with health authorities and producers, activities of evaluation and interpretation of regulations in food safety provide a valuable support for the progress of risk assessment of foods internationally.