Associate professor Megan Konar is the recipient of a 2022 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. This award, presented annually by The Grainger College of Engineering, recognizes outstanding research during the past year.
Konar is the William J. and Elaine F. Hall Faculty Fellow at CEE, where she has been on the faculty since 2013. Konar conducts research that focuses on the intersection of water, food and trade. In particular, her research group focuses on understanding how food supply chains impact water use and sustainability, as well as the exposure of agri-food supply chains to water risk. Her research is interdisciplinary, drawing from hydrology, environmental science and economics.
Among Konar’s many honors are the Campus Distinguished Promotion Award (2020), the Hydrologic Sciences Early Career Award (2019) and a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (2019). Konar is the University of Illinois lead of an NSF-funded national research network established to better understand interconnected causes of wasted food and advance solutions to improve sustainability, equity and resilience of the food system. She was also recently appointed to a two-year term as Chair of the Water and Society Technical Committee of the American Geophysical Union.
The award will be presented to Konar and other awardees at the Grainger College of Engineering Faculty Awards Ceremony on April 25, 2022 at the Campus Instructional Facility.