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Faculty & Staff
Bernardo Alatorre, MS Dipl. Brew
Lecturer – Brewery Operations
Specialty: Brewing Operations, Science, and Technology
Courses: Applied Brewing Operations, Beers of the World, Brewery Mechanics, Brewery Operations, Brewing Quality Analysis, Sensory Quality Analysis Beer
Bernardo Alatorre is a Lecturer for the Brewing Operations program in the School of Hospitality at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Prior to MSU Denver, Bernardo has served in a wide variety of functions in the Brewing industry for over 30 years, most recently as Director of Production and then Quality, Safety and Environment at Avery Brewing Company covering the entirety of the Brewing, Packaging and Distribution of Beer for the company.
Prior to craft brewing, he managed operations at major Breweries in Mexico City, the Pacific Northwest, Georgia and California, carrying responsibilities covering the entire brewing process from planning, supply chain, production and packaging as well as auxiliary services like quality and utilities-facilities.
Bernardo holds an undergraduate degree in Food Engineering from the Metropolitan Autonomous University and a Masters in Science in Biotechnology and Bioengineering from the National Polytechnic Institute, both in Mexico, as well as a Diploma in Brewing By the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in London.
He is an avid outdoors enthusiast, cyclist, music lover, photographer and father.
Helene Ver Eecke, Ph.D.
Full Professor and Microbiologist, Biology Department
Specialty: Extreme Microbiology, Fermentation
Courses: Brewing Fermentation
Helene Ver Eecke, Ph.D. teaches biology and is a founding member and intercollege-liaison of the Brewery Operations Program at MSU Denver. Ver Eecke has been involved in the programs’ conceptualization and actualization, including co-developing the fermentation science course curriculum. To further prepare for these tasks she has shadowed at various fermentation facilities and quality assurance laboratories including Avery Brewery, Breckenridge Brewery, New Belgium Brewery, and UC Davis. As an avid home-brewer, she’s excited to further foster collaborations with the brewing community and expand brewing operations programs at MSU Denver. She also actively runs biological QA/QC for Tivoli Brewing Company on the MSU Denver Campus.
As a specialist in extreme microbiology, her work has been featured in NASA Magazine, Science Daily and PNAS. Ver Eecke served as senior microbiologist for an industrial fermentation company where her skills of screening, cultivating, and optimizing microbes were expanded to large scale processes. Ver Eecke has been a professor of biology at numerous institutions and is currently a tenure-track professor at MSU Denver. She teaches General Microbiology, Microbial Ecology, and Fermentation Science, and is the faculty coordinator of General Microbiology. Ver Eecke’s research lab at MSU Denver is used to study various projects including brewing, bioremediation and extremophiles.
Katie Strain, M.S., C.B.S., T.T.B.
Lecturer, Brewery Operations Program
Specialty: Brewing Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Homebrewing
Courses: Brewing Quality Analysis, Beers of the World
Katie Strain came to MSU Denver in the Fall of 2018 with over 15 years of laboratory experience. She runs the Beverage Analytics QA/QC Laboratory | Powered by The Siebel Institute of Technology here at MSU Denver. She is one of only seven triple-TTB Certified Chemists in the country, and is qualified for the analysis of Beer, Wine, and Spirits.
Previously, Katie earned her M.S. from Southern Illinois University- Carbondale in Zoology, with an emphasis in Ecotoxicology and Analytical Chemistry. Her thesis project followed the fate and transport of the insecticidal Bt Cry1Ab protein derived from the soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, in a large-scale corn field located in central Illinois. After she graduated from SIU, she started working for the newly-developed SIU Fermentation Science Institute. She helped design and managed the Service Laboratory, and managed the day-to-day operations of the Institute, all while snacking on malt.
She earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2005, where she worked in a cancer research lab. When she left Nebraska, she worked at Colorado State University under Dr. Karen Dobos, isolating and generation materials for Tuberculosis research. Starting in Fall of 2020, Katie will be teaching as a full time faculty member in the Brewery Operations Program here at MSU Denver.
Katie is married to her husband, Ryan, who is the head baseball coach at MSU Denver. Get Rowdy!
Andrew Seidenstat
Beverage and Lab Coordinator
Andrew is an alumni of the Brewery Operations program. He graduated in 2023, Magna Cum Laude. He now works as a lab tech in the Beverage Analytics QA/QC lab as well as the procurement agent for the beverage program at MSU Denver.