Kathryn J. Boor

Kathryn J. Boor is an American food scientist and academic administrator. She is a professor of food processing microbiology at Cornell University. From 2020-25, she served as the dean of Cornell University's Graduate School and vice provost for graduate education. and from 2010-20, as the Ronald P Lynch Dean of the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).

Early life Boor was born and raised on a family-owned dairy farm in Chemung County in upstate New York. She obtained a BS in Food Science from Cornell University CALS in 1980, and an MS in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983. Her MS research with Winrock International in Kenya focused on improving human nutrition among limited-resource farmers. She returned to the US and earned a PhD in Microbiology at the University of California, Davis in 1994.

Career Boor returned to Cornell University in 1994 and became the first tenured female Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science. She established the Food Safety Laboratory and was co-lead for the Milk Quality Improvement Program. She was appointed as the Ronald P. Lynch Dean in 2010. As of August 2025, her h-index was 87 and her work had been cited over 20,400 times.

Awards and honors

2000 USDA Honor Award as a member of the Listeria Outbreak Working Group 2000 Foundation Scholar Award from the American Dairy Science Association 2006 DeLaval Dairy Extension Award from the American Dairy Science Association 2002 Samuel Cate Prescott Award for outstanding research from the Institute of Food Technologists Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow of the American Dairy Science Association Honorary Doctorate from Harper Adams University in the United Kingdom in 2016 2018 Woman of Distinction by New York Senate 2020 Harris Award for Excellence in Food Science and Technology, The Ohio State University 2020 Gerhard J. Haas Award for creative work in microbial food safety, Institute of Food Technologists 2020 Distinguished Service Citation, New York State Agricultural Society