Jill Cairns is a physiologist whose current research is largely focused on the development, validation and deployment of new phenotyping tools to increase maize breeding efficiency. She is also part of a team validating new seed production technologies for Africa. Cairns currently leads a component of the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa project on innovative breeding tools and techniques to increase the rate of genetic gain in the maize breeding pipeline, and is the cluster of activities leader for Climate Resilient Maize for Africa under MAIZE, a CGIAR Research Program.