Earlier this week at the U.S. Department of State, Dr. Hannah Kerner—Taylor Geospatial Research Advisor and the scientific lead behind Fields of The World—was recognized as the U.S. Nominee for the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (ASPIRE). We are incredibly proud of Hannah and pleased that she is receiving this well-deserved recognition.
To learn more about APEC and ASPIRE competition, read the release.
Breakthrough Research Meets Real-World Impact
Dr. Kerner’s nomination cited her research developing and deploying machine learning solutions to advance agricultural insights and strengthen community resilience to natural disasters and food insecurity.
Hannah was instrumental in launching and developing Taylor Geospatial’s effort, Fields of The World (FTW), a first-of-its-kind, openly available machine learning ecosystem for mapping agricultural field boundaries, which are a foundational input for food security, agricultural monitoring, and supply chain planning worldwide.
She led the development of the FTW model and, in collaboration with Taylor Geospatial’s cadre of Technical Fellows, the ecosystem necessary to tackle such a massive, collaborative undertaking. Her leadership on FTW aided our efforts to bridge the gap between breakthrough academic research and real-world deployment, accelerating the transition from idea to impact.
Dr. Kerner is also part of the Arizona State University–led team behind one of the winning projects in our Geospatial Innovation for Food Security (GIFS) program —a food system instability prediction tool developed with the University of Maryland, Washington University in St. Louis, NASA Harvest, NASA Goddard Flight Center and the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET). The innovation lets analysts pose plain-language questions and receive satellite-backed answers with confidence estimates.
Taken together, Hannah’s work with FTW and the GIFS project reflect an ongoing collaboration aimed squarely at the challenges ASPIRE was created to address.
We are proud to have a member of our team nominated as the U.S. representative for an award that champions international cooperation, economic stability, and scientific innovation. Dr. Kerner is a principal at Taylor Geospatial because her efforts align squarely with our mission to democratize the power of GeoAI through global partnerships, to unlock AI-driven geospatial breakthroughs that address critical global challenges, and to put those breakthroughs in the hands of the people who need them.
