2024 NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, University of California, Davis
Ross-Ibarra’s pioneering studies on the evolutionary genetics of maize, a key crop species for global food production, advance our understanding of the evolution of all crops.
Ross-Ibarra’s research uses population genetic approaches to address questions ranging from transposable element evolution to the genetics of quantitative traits, maize and human coevolution, domestication, and local adaptation. His studies of maize and its wild relatives have revealed the extensive impact of changing genomic diversity in maize and demonstrated the utility of genomic approaches to predict crop performance.