Dr. McDermid’s uses a variety of tools and datasets, including global climate and earth system models, process-based crop models, and observed datasets in her research. She spoke to students about how solution-based science can help us learn how to grow food in a more sustainable way to reduce reliability on carbon. Dr. McDermid detailed how quantitative models can help us understand crops and climate across the world. “Science is about building tools,” she explained to students. Her insights through a computational lens helped students make sense of our changing climate system.

Dr. Sonali McDermid also serves as Climate Co-Lead for the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project, which is conducting integrated assessments of climate change and food security in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. She also works with NASA GISS global climate model to better understand agriculture-climate interactions of global and regional climate-land surface interactions, and the impact of climate change and altered sea surface temperatures on the South Asian Summer Monsoon system.