Dr. Vikram Adve, Center for Digital Agriculture, Principal Investigator and Director
- Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA) at Illinois, an interdisciplinary institute with 48 affiliate faculty members, and strong education programming in Digital Agriculture
- Donald B. Gillies Professor, University of Illinois Scholar, and former Interim Head of Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois
- Fellow of the Association for Computer Machinery
- Co-developer of the widely used LLVM Compiler Infrastructure
Dr. Elizabeth Ainsworth, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), co-PI
- Research Plant Physiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS)
- Adjunct professor of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois
- Elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2019
- Honored with the 2019 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences
- Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020
Dr. Bruno Basso, Michigan State University, Partner Lead
- Foundation Professor
- Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America and the American Society of Agronomy
- MSU Innovation of the Year award in 2016, which lead to the commercialization of some aspects of his research and the foundation of a start-up company called CiBO Technologies which recently received the Forbes Impact Award
Dr. Olga Bolden-Tiller, Tuskegee University, Associate Director, Education and Outreach
- Dean of the College of Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition Sciences (CAENS)
- Serves as Director for the NSF funded Integrative Biosciences Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at Tuskegee
- Active member of numerous professional societies, serving in leadership roles in many, including the American Society of Animal Sciences, the Society for the Study of Reproduction as well as Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences
- Current research interests entail elucidating the molecular mechanisms of testicular function in rodents and ruminants
Dr. Girish Chowdhary, Associate Director, Research
- Founding Director of the Field Robotics Engineering and Science Hub (FRESH) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Co-founder of EarthSEnse, Inc. Recipient of NSF SBIR Phase 2, and over $1M in venture funds
- Recipient of the Dave Ward Memorial Award for contributions to adaptive flight control
Dr. Supratik Guha, Associate Director, Technology Transfer & Industry Engagement
- Director, Nanoscience and Technology Division Argonne National Laboratory
- Senior Advisor to the Physical Sciences and Engineering Directorate, Argonne National Laboratory
- Member of the National Academy of Engineering
- Fellow of Material Research Society
- Recipient of the 2015 Prize for Industrial Application of Physics
Dr. Matt Hudson, Center for Digital Agriculture, Liaison
- Co-Director of the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA) at Illinois
- Professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois
- Feedstock Production Deputy Theme Lead, Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts (CABBI), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Madhu Khanna, Associate Director, Technology Adoption & Public Policy
- Interim Director, Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and the Environment (ISEE) at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign comprised of more than 80 faculty and staff members, and five research themes
- ACES Distinguished Professor in Environmental Economics
- Sustainability Theme Lead, Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts (CABBI), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Alex Schwing, Associate Director of Research
- Assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Computer Science Department
- Former postdoctoral fellow in the Machine Learning Group at University of Toronto collaborating with Raquel Urtasun, Rich Zemel and Ruslan Salakhutdinov
Jessica Wedow, AIFARMS Executive Director
- PhD Plant Biology, University of Illinois
- Research Focus: quantify changes in metabolite profiles of agronomically important C4 grasses in response to 1) elevated temperature and [CO2]; and 2) elevated ozone
- 2017 Workflow for Metabolomics Workshop, Paris France
- 2017 Francis M. and Harlie M. Clark Research Support Grant
- 2017 Harley J. Van Cleave Research Award
- 2015 American Society of Plant Biologist, Conference Travel Award