Edwin M. Foster

Edwin Michael Foster (January 1, 1917, Alba, Texas – February 11, 2013, Madison, Wisconsin) was an American microbiologist, specializing in food microbiology. He was the president of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) in 1970.

Biography Foster grew up in poverty on a small cotton farm in East Texas. At North Texas State Teachers College (now named the University of North Texas), he graduated in 1936 with a bachelor's degree and in 1937 with a master's degree in biology. At the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UWM), he graduated in 1940 with a Ph.D. in agricultural bacteriology. His Ph.D. thesis The bacteriology of brick cheese during ripening. was supervised by William Carroll Frazier. In late 1945 he became an assistant professor of agricultural bacteriology at UWM. There he was promoted to associate professor in 1946 and full professor in 1952, retiring as professor emeritus in 1987. In 1966 he arranged for the Food Research Institute to move from the University of Chicago to UWM. He was the institute's director from 1966 to 1986 and expanded its size and scope. In 1975 the institute became its own department, named the Department of Food Micriobiology and Toxicoloy, at UWW. The new department was chaired by Foster from 1975 to 1986. His directorship of the Food Research Institute established UWM as a world-class center of food research. In 1982 he was the W. O. Atwater Memorial Lecturer.

In 1941 he married Winona Lively (1919–2006). They were parents of a son, Michael Stewart Foster.

Selected publications

1966