Steve Long

Why you should listen

Obsessed with bioenergy and food security, Steve Long is the Ikenberry Chair of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. There, he also directs the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) project, a Gates Foundation-funded program to develop technologies to increase photosynthetic efficiency and sustainably improve crop yields. His lab is working at the genetic level on crops, and experiments to date have shown a promising uptick in soybean productivity and crop leaf water use efficiency, critical factors in the quest to feed the world's humans while minimizing the impact of that endeavor on the planet. Because photosynthesis is basically the same process across plants, the expectations is that these improvements will be transferable to a wide range of crops. He also led the development of the Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment (SoyFACE) facility, the world's largest open-air space testing research on adapting crops to climate change.

Long is the founding and chief editor of GCB Bioenergy, in silico Plants and Global Change Biology, which the Institute for Scientific Information listed as the most cited journal on climate change after Nature and Science. He has presented on bioenergy and food security to multiple world leaders and has been recognized by prominent scientific societies, including his elections as a fellow of the Royal Society of London and as a member of the US National Academy of Science.