A Cooperative Extension Specialist and faculty member at the University of California at Berkley, Lemaux’s outreach and educational programming increases public understanding of agricultural practices, food production and the impact of new technologies on food and agriculture. Her research focuses on the development and use of genetic engineering and genomic strategies for cereals, wheat, sorghum, barley, rice, maize and certain grass species.

In her Food for Thought lecture, Peggy discusses the challenges faced by having to feed an estimated 9.1 billion people by 2050. Even today there are 923 million chronically undernourished people in underdeveloped regions of the world and increasingly even in the developed world. Through improvements in crops and agricultural practices, crop yields have steadily risen, but those increases are beginning to decline. New agricultural methods and improved crop species are needed to provide adequate food in an environmentally friendly manner without increasing cultivated land.