Natasha Krell

Natasha Krell is a human-environment geographer who studies the impacts of climate variability on small-scale farming and the diffusion of mobile phones and access to digital information. She received her Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2021. Her research is centered in Eastern and Southern Africa, with extensive fieldwork conducted in Kenya and Zambia.

Her research interests include:

• Climate variability and its impacts on smallholder farming systems
• Food security in dryland agricultural regions
• Mobile phone technology adoption among small-scale farmers
• Decision-making processes in agricultural contexts
• Digital information access in rural communities

Natasha's research examines the intersection between information technologies, climate variability, and food security in smallholder systems. Her work has focused on monitoring crop production and farmer decision-making in central Kenya, as well as Arable Mark environmental monitoring deployments in Zambia's Southern Province. She has presented findings at the AGU Fall Meetings in 2019 and 2020, demonstrating her active engagement in the scientific community.

Her scientific achievements include:

• Fulbright Research Fellowship to Kenya (2018)
• Schmidt Environmental Fellowship
• Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship supporting her dissertation

Natasha has contributed to scholarship programs for the WAVES lab students and has secured grant funding for research on climate variability and agricultural technology in African contexts. Her work bridges technical innovation with practical agricultural challenges faced by smallholder farmers.

She maintains active research collaborations with field sites in Kenya and Zambia, working directly with farming communities to understand adaptation strategies to climate challenges and technology adoption patterns.