Events Using AI to analyze agrifood project design

A seminar with J-WAFS research affiliate Jaron Porciello 

January 15, 2026 - 4:00 PM J-WAFS Conference Room in E38

Jaron Porciello (Cornell University) will give a talk at J-WAFS at MIT on the use of AI to analyze agrifood project design documents from across six international financial institutions, based on the recent paper “Do international financial institutions facilitate agrifood systems transformation? A textual analysis of design documents” (Global Food Security, 2025). Her work integrates social-science frameworks with inductive coding and use of large language models to work with “small datasets” to assess how global investments respond to international priorities.

Jaron Porciello is a researcher and strategist working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, international development, and agrifood systems. She partners with organizations that want to make better use of their program data and currently leads a development-donor capacity-building program and helpdesk designed to help donors learn from the global community about effective AI implementation.

The seminar is open to the MIT community as well as community members from surrounding academic institutions. Registration is required. Click the button below to register now.