Nutrition professor wins USDA award
Janet Anderson has another award to add to her shelf.
Anderson, a clinical professor in the department of nutrition and food sciences, was presented an award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for excellence in teaching at a conference in Houston on Nov. 12.
“It’s a really huge honor – much bigger than I expected,” Anderson said. “The application package was huge too.”
To receive the award, Anderson had to submit materials about her philosophy of teaching, student evaluation scores, letters of support and her innovations in teaching.
“I love my job,” Anderson said, “and what I love about it is we have incredibly bright minds. Some of the best students on campus are in this program. We give them a little information and they do more with it than I could do.”
Anderson has taught at USU for 16 years and has been conducting research in the area of food safety for the past six years.
She said her breakthrough in food safety research was when she videotaped people working in their kitchens. Before that, she said researchers relied on surveys to find out whether people were safe in their food preparation. Anderson said the main problem with that is that surveys are good for determining attitudes, but not behaviors.
That research then led to projects in food safety in grocery stores and middle schools. Anderson said the software that was designed to teach schoolchildren about food safety won awards for science teaching.
Chuck Carpenter, department head of nutrition and food sciences, said, “It’s pretty important work. She’s focused a lot on developing teaching modules that can take the message of food safety at home to school-age children.”
It is this kind of work that has helped Anderson become an award-winning professor. Anderson was one of six professors nationwide to receive the USDA award.
“I think it’s a well-deserved recognition of the outstanding teaching she has done at Utah State for years,” Carpenter said. “I just goes to show the quality of teachers at USU.”