Student Spotlight: Tiffany Yang (MBA ’21)
January 22, 2020
Tiffany Yang is a joint MBA/MS in Food Science student graduating in 2021. Her pursuit of a food science career came from her interest in the production of common foods that we eat every day. She wanted to gain manufacturing insight and find ways to make food both safer and of a higher quality for consumers.
Tiffany served as a Culinary Development Intern with Hormel Foods in Minnesota in Summer 2016. There she was able to shadow product development scientists and work on a project converting sloppy joe sauce from jar packing to cans. She witnessed numerous product testings in different production plants and attended product tastings.
Tiffany earned her Bachelor of Science in Food Science and Technology with a minor in Culinology from Cal Poly Pomona in 2017. Following graduation, she became a Processing Supply Chain Leader at Frito-Lay in Rancho Cucamonga. In this role, she primarily served as a production supervisor, managing 11 processing lines and 15 team members.
Tiffany is proud of her accomplishments during her year in this role; she minimized downtime, maintained accurate throughput for the packaging side, transitioned smoothly in between changeovers and shift exchanges and solved any operational problems that arose.
Tiffany worked as a Quality Assurance Intern with Reyes Coca Cola Bottling in Downey in the summer of 2019 following her first year of grad school. For eight weeks, she was responsible for making sure that the Control Plan (a file that consists of all checks for each processing line for the production plants on the west coast and Great Lakes) matched the Coca Cola North America standards. Tiffany utilized this opportunity to learn about beverage processing and look into what Quality Assurance technicians need to accomplish every day.
Tiffany says, “I hope to leverage my MBA to become a manager in the food industry. With my Bachelor’s in Food Science and a Masters in Food Science, I hope to utilize that knowledge to gain more insight into the costs and operations of a business.”
Tiffany aspires to work in the field of Research and Development as a Product Developer or in food safety. With her MBA and career experience, she is striving to become a product manager in the future.
Fun Facts about Tiffany:
- Has a scar on her knee in the shape of Mickey Mouse
- She has visited 13 countries, including Greece, Bahamas, Taiwan, Switzerland, Japan, Italy and Singapore
- Loves eating all kinds of cheese
- Snowboards in her free time