Meha Jain is the recipient of the S&R Evermay’s Kuno Award for the Social Good, a biennial award of $100,000 designed specifically to support female-identifying social innovators using scientific research and principles to address modern-day problems. 

Jain, who is an associate professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), focuses her research on the impacts of environmental change on agricultural production, and how farmers may adapt to reduce negative impacts. Additionally, she examines sustainable ways to enhance agricultural production in a changing climate. Her work combines remote sensing and geospatial analyses with household surveys to understand farmer decision-making and its impacts on agricultural production at scale.

With the award, Jain will create a mobile application that provides field-level yield information for smallholder farmers in India. 

"I am really excited about this award because it is hard to find funding for such applied work through traditional federal grants,” says Jain. “The Kuno Award will allow me to translate my research program into applied solutions to increase production for smallholder farmers. Specifically, I will use the Kuno Award to develop a mobile-based application that provides historical crop yield information at the field-scale, which will be used by our partner organizations on the ground to measure the impact of and better target agricultural interventions."

Learn more on the S&R Evermay website.