2025 World Food Prize Laureate and Researcher at Embrapa National Soybean Center

Dr. Mariangela Hungria will receive the 2025 World Food Prize for her extraordinary scientific advancements in biological nitrogen fixation, which have transformed the sustainability of soil health and crop nutrition in tropical agriculture. The low-cost technologies and products she developed have sustainably increased crop productivity across tens of millions of hectares.

By harnessing symbiotic soil microorganisms as a powerful alternative to synthetic fertilizers, Dr. Hungria has improved plant nutrient uptake, enabled farmers to save billions of dollars and mitigated environmental risks linked to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions—allowing them to produce more with less.

A Senior Researcher at the Embrapa National Soybean Center (Embrapa Soja) in Brazil, Dr. Hungria has spent more than 40 years advancing the field of soil microbiology. She received the TWAS-Lenovo Science Award and was named a Commander of the National Order of Scientific Merit. She is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and The World Academy of Sciences, and she was the first woman elected president of the Brazilian Society of Soil Science.

Dr. Hungria has authored more than 380 scientific articles and was recognized by Stanford University among the 100,000 most influential researchers in the world. She holds a Ph.D. in soil science from the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, and both an M.S. and B.S. from the University of São Paulo.