As you may know, after nearly 15 years of dedicated leadership, IGB Director Gene Robinson will soon become the Executive Director and CEO of the Discovery Partners Institute (pending Board of Trustees approval). I’m so pleased to announce that, effective January 16, Professor Lisa Ainsworth has agreed to serve as interim director of the IGB, for the coming year.
Professor Ainsworth is an accomplished scholar, a skilled mentor, an experienced administrator, and a demonstrated research leader. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, she holds the Charles Adlai Ewing Chair in Crop Sciences and Professor of Plant Biology.
Professor Ainsworth joined the faculty at Illinois in 2024 after serving as the Research Leader for the USDA Agricultural Research Service Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit, where she was recognized as Distinguished Senior Research Scientist of the Year in 2019. Throughout her 19-year career with ARS, she was embedded on campus as an adjunct member of the Departments of Plant Biology and of Crop Sciences.
She has been affiliated with the IGB’s Genomic Ecology of Global Change (GEGC), now the Photosynthesis and Food Security (PFS) theme, since the opening of the IGB in 2007. She currently leads one of the IGB’s longest running and most successful projects, the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) project.
I am grateful to Professor Ainsworth for her willingness to step into the interim role. I would also like to thank Professor Robinson for his many years of visionary service, dedication to the IGB, superb mentorship, and continued commitment to campus. Under his leadership, IGB became the leading institute for interdisciplinary genomics research in the country, with a comprehensive portfolio that spans agriculture, energy, health, technology, and AI. Using the IGB as a model for team science, Professor Robinson founded the Big Ten Academic Alliance peer group for directors of campus-reporting institutes. During his leadership at IGB, he oversaw the doubling of annual grant income, launched innovative partnerships and initiatives, fostered entrepreneurship, and created the IGB’s award-winning outreach and public engagement program to help the public understand genomics and its impact on science and society.
As we transition to new IGB leadership, please join me in thanking Professor Ainsworth for her service to the campus and in wishing Professor Robinson the very best in his new role.
Sincerely,
Susan A. Martinis
Senior Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation
Stephen G. Sligar Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Professor of Biochemistry