Jade Mitchell is a Professor and Associate Department Chair in Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering (BAE) at Michigan State University (MSU). Her research expertise is in the interdisciplinary field of human health risk analysis, focusing on how chemical and microbial stressors from diverse environmental exposures lead to adverse health outcomes. Using quantitative analysis, statistical modeling, and mechanistic approaches, she characterize risks to inform engineering design, environmental policy, and risk management decision-making. Dr. Mitchell currently leads several large, interdisciplinary research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). She leads a high-impact NIH-funded research education program, now in its fifth year of a second five-year grant. This initiative focuses on cross-disciplinary training in quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA), where she co-creates and delivers curriculum alongside a team of 10-14 resource faculty under her leadership. Her career trajectory reflects an evolution from technical expertise to academic leadership. After earning her M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Drexel University, she completed postdoctoral research fellowships at the EPA Office of Research and Development and the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service. She has published nearly 70 peer-reviewed publications.
Her leadership extends beyond research. She has served on numerous advisory boards, organizing, planning and steering committees within and outside of MSU. As an elected member of the Society for Risk Analysis executive board, she has played a key role in a restructuring process to align the society with its updated bylaws and charters after a governance review. She served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) planning committee for the Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions, Workshop: Pivotal Interfaces of Environmental Health and Infectious Disease Research to Inform Responses to Outbreaks, Epidemics, and Pandemics. In 2024, she was appointed to the U.S. EPA’s Science Advisory Board. At MSU, she has served as Associate Department Chair of BAE since 2022, leading a cluster hire, developing the first departmental policies and procedures handbook, and conducting a strategic graduate program assessment that has informed an ongoing graduate program improvement implementation plan. Dr. Mitchell was also a core member of the MSU COVID-19 Taskforce, where she worked alongside university administration to develop policy, communication strategies, and research-based interventions, including active and passive testing and sampling protocols.