How will the world eat in the face of climate change and other threats? That question dominates Ainsworth’s pioneering research, which has helped to reveal how man-made atmospheric changes will affect the physiology and growth of crops around the world.

Ainsworth led the evolution of the SoyFACE Global Change Research Facility, where she serves as lead investigator. There, she has conducted groundbreaking research to show how crops such as maize and soybeans will be affected by increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and ozone in combination with drought and other environmental stresses, as well as possible solutions. The work recently revealed that a large portion of the United States harvest of corn and soybean was lost due to ozone pollution over the past 20 years.