JAMES R. COUGHLIN, Ph.D.

President, Coughlin & Associates  

 James R. Coughlin has 30 years experience in nutritional toxicology and chemical safety, as well as in risk assessment/management/communication, and environmental toxicology.  He was formerly Director of Scientific Relations for Kraft General Foods, the nation's largest food and beverage company.  An internationally recognized expert in food, nutrition and chemical safety and toxicology, Dr. Coughlin has extensive worldwide experience in assessing and managing health, safety and regulatory issues on foods, food additives, contaminants such as acrylamide, nutrients, functional food ingredients, genetically modified foods, environmental chemicals, pesticides, and consumer products.  He has organized, chaired and presented at numerous international symposia on the risk assessment of essential trace elements, especially boron, and recently completed a two-year term as Vice President of the International Society for Trace Element Research in Humans.  He has been deeply engaged in the recent scientific and regulatory issues surrounding the discovery of acrylamide in foods, and has been an invited speaker at numerous workshops and symposia dealing with this issue.  Dr. Coughlin has also served for the past two years on an Expert Panel advising the U.S. FDA on bioterrorism threat assessments in foods.

 Dr. Coughlin is a 1968 graduate of Siena College with a B.S. in Chemistry.  He received both his M.S. in Food Science and Technology (1974) and his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry (1979) from the University of California at Davis.  As a U.S. National Institute of Health trainee in 1979, he worked as a Postdoctoral Toxicologist in the Department of Environmental Toxicology at the University of California at Davis.  His dissertation laboratory research focused on food chemical carcinogens, including the N-nitrosamines formed from nitrite and food constituents, as well as various carcinogenic mycotoxins.  Dr. Coughlin's first industrial position was as Food Safety Scientist at Armour Foods Company, then the country’s largest meat processor, and before undertaking his current role as an independent consultant in 1991, he spent a decade at General Foods Corporation and Kraft General Foods Inc. managing external toxicology, safety and regulatory issues.

 Dr. Coughlin is twice Past-Chairman of the Toxicology and Safety Evaluation Division of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), a division he helped found in 1980, has served a three-year term on the IFT’s International Relations Committee and was instrumental in founding the IFT’s International Division.  In 1989-1991 he served as President of the International Coffee Science Association, the Paris-based scientific society dedicated to improving worldwide research on coffee agronomy, processing, biotechnology, quality and safety.  He has also chaired the Scientific Advisory Group and the Standards Regulations Committee of the National Coffee Association of the USA.  He is a member of the American Chemical Society, the Society for Risk Analysis, the Toxicology Forum and the Specialty Coffee Association of America. 

 In previous industrial positions and for his current clients, he has assessed and managed California’s Proposition 65 compliance requirements since the law's passage in 1986.  He served for many years on the Editorial Advisory Board of the American Environmental Institute’s Prop 65 News and is a frequent invited presenter at the Institute’s Annual Conferences.  He has also served on several committees of the International Life Sciences Institute (including the Proposition 65 Technical Committee, the Caffeine Committee, the Risk Assessment and Residue Committees and the International Food Biotechnology Committee), and he chaired the Institute’s Toxicology Task Force of the Antioxidant Technical Committee.  Dr. Coughlin was also involved in founding the Caffeine Committee of the International Food Information Council and has served as a consultant to this Committee. 

 Dr. Coughlin has been active in many trade associations, including the Grocery Manufacturers of America, the National Food Processors Association, the American Meat Institute, the National Association of Chewing Gum Manufacturers and the Calorie Control Council.  He currently provides strategic scientific, toxicologic, nutritional, communications and regulatory counsel to several Fortune 500 food, chemical, pharmaceutical, mining and consumer products companies and their affiliated law firms and trade associations.