Dr. Segenet Kelemu has been recognized for her research on how microbes living in symbiosis with these grasses influence their health, their capacity to adapt to environmental stress and their ability to resist disease. By enabling small-scale farmers in tropical and sub-tropical regions to choose the most productive, most pathogen-resistant forage grasses, her work has both helped them improve their lives and increase supplies of much-needed animal proteins. In particular, Dr. Kelemu's research on Brachiaria grasses has shown that their capacity to thrive in diverse environments is related to an endophyte fungus which lives within these plants, protects them and exists in symbiosis with them. Her work has led to solutions for disruptions in food supplies caused by pathogenic organisms and extreme climatic conditions and may help to determine which microbes allow crops to survive environmental alterations.