The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) announced its ninth round of seed grants to support research efforts that tackle food and water-related challenges, with the ultimate goal of creating meaningful impact. Ten new projects tackling a diverse set of challenges will be supported, including that of David Des Marais, 2018 J-WAFS principal investigator and the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, whose 2023 J-WAFS project seeks to understand plant growth responses to elevated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, in the hopes of identifying breeding strategies that maximise crop yield. David is also ateam member of one of the 2022 MIT Climate Grand Challenges finalists for the project, 'Managing sources and sinks of carbon in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems'. Another recipient is Kripa Varanasi and Rohit Karnik, a J-WAFS principal investigator on multiple J-WAFS funded projects since 2015 and Tata Professor.
