His research focuses on identifying opportunities to raise crop yields in major agricultural regions, and uses a combination of big data sets, statistics, and model simulations. He has been recognized with a Macarthur Fellowship in 2013, a McMaster Fellowship from CSIRO in 2014, and the Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union in 2010. He also served as lead author for the food chapter and core writing team member for the Summary for Policymakers in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. Dr. Lobell received a Ph.D. in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford in 2005, and a Sc.B. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University in 2000.