WASHINGTON — On May 26, the Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing on President Obama’s nominations of Elisabeth Hagen to the position of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) undersecretary for food safety and Catherine Woteki to the position of U.S.D.A. undersecretary for research, education and economics, the American Meat Institute (A.M.I.) announced.

Currently the U.S.D.A.’s chief medical officer, Ms. Hagen was previously a senior executive at the Food Safety and Inspection Service (F.S.I.S.). Ms. Woteki served as the first undersecretary for food safety at U.S.D.A. during the Clinton administration, she worked for two years in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where she co-authored the Clinton Administration's policy statement, “Science in the National Interest,” and served as the deputy undersecretary for research, education and economics. She was dean of agriculture and professor of human nutrition at Iowa State University from 2002-2005, where she also was the head of the Agriculture Experiment Station.

Ms. Woteki was global director of scientific affairs for Mars Inc. since 2005, where she managed the company’s scientific policy and research on matters of health, nutrition and food safety.