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University of Illinois crop science professor elected to National Academy of Sciences

A professor of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences– one of the highest honors a scientist can receive.

Lisa Ainsworth, who is also a research plant physiologist with the USDA’s Ag Research Service, is known for her research on how crops are impacted by pollutants like ozone and carbon dioxide.

Ainsworth works to understand how plants will respond to climate change as atmospheric conditions are predicted to get worse. Her work highlights how pollutants, temperature and rainfall can influence the quality of productivity of crops like corn and soybeans.

Currently she leads the Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit and the Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment (SoyFACE) project for the USDA in Urbana, Illinois as well as the Realizing Increased Photosynthesis Efficiency (RIPE) international research project.

The National Academy of Sciences and her peers selected Ainsworth for her “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”