Patrick Cournoyer is a senior science advisor who leads the FDA’s Cannabis Product Committee (CPC), managing and coordinating the Agency’s cannabis-related activities. Before starting this position in 2022, he served on the CPC for the Office of Food Additive Safety (OFAS) in the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), advising on food ingredient regulation of cannabis-derived substances, including cannabidiol and hemp seed. In OFAS, Patrick also specialized in the food safety evaluation of new plant varieties, including those developed through genetic engineering and genome editing. Before joining the FDA in 2013, he completed his PhD at Yale University, where he investigated the cell and molecular biology of the plant immune system.