Daniel Wallach
David Wallach, 2024
Born (1948-12-04) 4 December 1948 (age 76)
Toronto, Canada
OccupationRetired Professor of Crop Science
Academic background
Alma materHarvard University
Academic work
InstitutionsINRAE

Daniel Wallach (born December, 4th 1942 in Toronto/Canada) is a US-American scientist recognized for his contributions to application of statistical methods to soil-crop models with a focus on agricultural systems [1]. His research integrates statistical methodologies with process-based models to enhance model accuracy and application [2]. Prof. Daniel Wallach's work addresses sustainability and evaluates the impacts of climate change on crop production, food security, and resource conservation.

Biography

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Daniel Wallach was born in 1942 in Toronto (Canada) and became at an early age an American citizen when his parents and the extended family, Russian immigrants, moved to Los Angeles (USA). Since 1981, he has been living in France, where he is married to Martine. Together, they raised 5 children. His cousin David Wallach is a full professor at the Department of Biological Chemistry at Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, laureate of the 2014 Emet Prize for Life Sciences.

Education and Academic Career

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Wallach completed his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1963. He earned his Master of Science in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1965, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics in 1968. His doctoral research, conducted under John D. Baldeschwieler, focused on the study of molecular and internal rotation in liquids using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

After completing post-doctoral research at Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he served as a lecturer on ecology and a contract researcher in the Botany Department from 1972 to 1981.

In 1981, Wallach moved to France to work with INRA (now INRAe, Institut_national_de_la_recherche_agronomique). Over three decades, he advanced from contract researcher in the Biometry Department to Research Director in the Environment and Agriculture Department. After retiring from full-time professorship in 2011, he continued as a “Chargé de mission” until 2021.

Wallach has also held academic positions worldwide, including as a guest professor at Nanjing Agricultural University from 2015 to 2020 and as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida, where he worked within the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department. In 2022, he was called to the University of Bonn, where he has since been Distinguished Professor Emeriti at the Crop Science at the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES)[3].

Contributions to the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP)

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Wallach was an inaugural (2010) member of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) and continues to serve and an active member[4]. AgMIP is a global collaboration of multidisciplinary scientists aiming to significantly improve agricultural models, and scientific and technological capabilities, for assessing impacts of climate variability and change and other driving forces on agriculture, food security, and poverty at local to global scales. Cynthia Rosenzweig received the 2022 World Food Prize for her contributions to understanding and predicting the impacts of the interaction between climate and food systems and her engagement in AgMIP. Daniel Wallach has been and active member of a number of AgMIP team – groups of people focussing and a specific aspect of agricultural model improvement. Most notable amongst there is the Calibration team[5], that he established in 2016, whose aim is to develop robust and widely applicable methods of calibrating crop models. The Calibration team has published six international peer-reviewed journal papers (Dec 2024). Calibration is a critical but poorly understood and often overlooked aspect of crop modelling. It is also a subject of long-standing interest to Wallach, as exemplified by his book Working with Dynamic Crop Models[6].

Selected Publications

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Books

  • Wallach, D.; Makowski, D.; Jones, J.W.; Brun, F. (2019). Working with Dynamic Crop Models: Methods, Tools and Examples for Agriculture and Environment (Third ed.). London, U.K.: Academic Press.

Articles

  • Wallach, D. (1967). "Effect of internal rotation on angular correlation functions". J. Chem. Phys. 47 (12): 5258. Bibcode:1967JChPh..47.5258W. doi:10.1063/1.1701790.
  • Asseng, S.; Ewert, F.; Martre, P.; Rötter, R.P.; Lobell, D.B.; Cammarano, D.; Kimball, B.A.; Ottman, M.J.; Wall, G.W.; White, J.W.; Reynolds, M.P.; Alderman, P.D.; Prasad, P.V.V.; Aggarwal, P.K.; Anothai, J.; Basso, B.; Biernath, C.; Challinor, A.J.; De Sanctis, G.; Doltra, J.; Fereres, E.; Garcia-Vila, M.; Gayler, S.; Hoogenboom, G.; Hunt, L.A.; Izaurralde, R.C.; Jabloun, M.; Jones, C.D.; Kersebaum, K.C.; Koehler, A.-K.; Müller, C.; Naresh Kumar, S.; Nendel, C.; O’Leary, G.; Olesen, J.E.; Palosuo, T.; Priesack, E.; Eyshi Rezaei, E.; Ruane, A.C.; Semenov, M.A.; Shcherbak, I.; Stöckle, C.; Stratonovitch, P.; Streck, T.; Supit, I.; Tao, F.; Thorburn, P.J.; Waha, K.; Wang, E.; Wallach, D.; Wolf, J.; Zhao, Z.; Zhu, Y. (2015). "Rising temperatures reduce global wheat production". Nat. Clim. Chang. 5 (2): 143–147. Bibcode:2015NatCC...5..143A. doi:10.1038/nclimate2470.
  • Rosenzweig, C.; Jones, J.W.; Hatfield, J.L.; Ruane, A.C.; Boote, K.J.; Thorburn, P.; Antle, J.M.; Nelson, G.C.; Porter, C.; Janssen, S.; Asseng, S.; Basso, B.; Ewert, F.; Wallach, D.; Baigorria, G.; Winter, J.M. (2013). "The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP): Protocols and pilot studies". Agric. For. Meteorol. 170: 166–182. Bibcode:2013AgFM..170..166R. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2012.09.011. hdl:2060/20150002678.
  • Wallach, D. (2011). "Crop model calibration: A statistical perspective". Agron. J. 103 (4): 1144–1151. Bibcode:2011AgrJ..103.1144W. doi:10.2134/agronj2010.0432.
  • Wallach, D.; Palosuo, T.; Thorburn, P.; Hochman, Z.; Gourdain, E.; Andrianasolo, F.; Asseng, S.; Basso, B.; Buis, S.; Crout, N.; Dibari, C.; Dumont, B.; Ferrise, R.; Gaiser, T.; Garcia, C.; Gayler, S.; Ghahramani, A.; Hiremath, S.; Hoek, S.; Horan, H.; Hoogenboom, G.; Huang, M.; Jabloun, M.; Jansson, P.-E.; Jing, Q.; Justes, E.; Kersebaum, K.C.; Klosterhalfen, A.; Launay, M.; Lewan, E.; Luo, Q.; Maestrini, B.; Mielenz, H.; Moriondo, M.; Nariman Zadeh, H.; Padovan, G.; Olesen, J.E.; Poyda, A.; Priesack, E.; Pullens, J.W.M.; Qian, B.; Schütze, N.; Shelia, V.; Souissi, A.; Specka, X.; Srivastava, A.K.; Stella, T.; Streck, T.; Trombi, G.; Wallor, E.; Wang, J.; Weber, T.K.D.; Weihermüller, L.; de Wit, A.; Wöhling, T.; Xiao, L.; Zhao, C.; Zhu, Y.; Seidel, S.J. (2021). "The chaos in calibrating crop models: Lessons learned from a multi-model calibration exercise". Environ. Model. Softw. 145: 105206. Bibcode:2021EnvMS.14505206W. doi:10.1016/J.ENVSOFT.2021.105206.
  • Wallach, D.; Martre, P.; Liu, B.; Asseng, S.; Ewert, F.; Thorburn, P.J.; Ittersum, M.; Aggarwal, P.K.; Ahmed, M. (2018). "Multimodel ensembles improve predictions of crop–environment–management interactions" (PDF). Glob. Chang. Biol. 24 (11): 5072–5083. Bibcode:2018GCBio..24.5072W. doi:10.1111/gcb.14411. PMID 30055118.
  • Wallach, D.; Palosuo, T.; Thorburn, P.; Mielenz, H.; Buis, S. (2023). "Proposal and extensive test of a calibration protocol for crop phenology models". Agron. Sustain. Dev. 43 (4): 46. Bibcode:2023AgSD...43...46W. doi:10.1007/s13593-023-00900-0.
  • Wallach, D.; Buis, S.; Seserman, D.-M.; Palosuo, T.; Thorburn, P.J.; Mielenz, H.; Justes, E.; Kersebaum, K.-C.; Dumont, B.; Launay, M.; Seidel, S.J. (2024). "A calibration protocol for soil-crop models". Environ. Model. Softw. 180: 106147. Bibcode:2024EnvMS.18006147W. doi:10.1016/J.ENVSOFT.2024.106147.
  • Wang, B.; Jägermeyr, J.; O’Leary, G.J.; Wallach, D.; Ruane, A.C.; Feng, P. (2024). "Pathways to identify and reduce uncertainties in agricultural climate impact assessments". Nat. Food. 5 (7): 550–556. doi:10.1038/s43016-024-01014-w. PMID 39009735.
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References

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