She teaches courses on Food Fraud, Food Microbiology, and General Microbiology. Dr. Hellberg received an M.S. and Ph.D. in Food Science and Technology at Oregon State University, where she studied seafood safety and fish mislabeling. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the FDA working on the development and optimization of DNA-based methods for the detection of food pathogens and food mislabeling. Dr. Hellberg received the 2015-2017 Wang-Fradkin Assistant Professorship Award for exceptional merit in scholarly and creative activity at Chapman University. In 2017, Dr. Hellberg was selected as a recipient of the Emerging Leaders Network Award by the Institute of Food Technologists. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.