Professor Lisa Ainsworth

Lisa Ainsworth, RIPE Deputy Director, Research Plant Physiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Illinois alum, on scene at the field trials.

Elizabeth A. (Lisa) Ainsworth is the Charles Adlai Ewing Chair of Crop Physiology in the Department of Crop Sciences and the Department of Plant Biology. She received her BS in Biology at UCLA, PhD in Crop Sciences from the University of Illinois, and was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Germany. Before joining the University of Illinois faculty in October 2024, Lisa was the Research Leader for the USDA Agricultural Research Service Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit. Her research addresses crop responses to climate change and tests potential solutions for mitigation of climate change through agriculture. Lisa has held leadership positions in the American Society of Plant Biologists and the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She is a fellow of AAAS, received the National Academy of Sciences Prize in Food and Agricultural Sciences in 2019, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.

Contact

217-265-9887
ainswort@illinois.edu

Education

B.S. University of California at Los Angeles
Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Humboldt Fellow, Juelich Research Center, Juelich, Germany

Campus Affiliations

Charles Adlai Ewing Chair, Crop Sciences
Professor, Crop Sciences
Professor, Plant Biology
Interim Director, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
CAS Professor, Center for Advanced Study
Director, Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Affiliate, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

Awards and Honors

2019 NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences
2018 Presidential Award, Crop Science Society of America
2016, 2017 Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers List
2016 Service Recognition Award, College of ACES, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
2015 USDA ARS Outreach, Diversity and Equal Opportunity Award
2012 University Scholar, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
2012 Charles Albert Shull Award, American Society of Plant Biologists
2011 President’s Medal, Society for Experimental Biology
2011-2012 I.C. Gunsalus Scholar, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
2009 USDA ARS Midwest Area Early Career Research Scientist of the Year Award