Ronald was named a National Geographic Innovator and one of Grist’s 50 innovators who will lead us toward a more sustainable future. She received the USDA National Research Institute Discovery Award, the Louis Malassis International Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food, and the Tech Award for innovative use of technology to benefit humanity. She was named one of the world’s most influential scientific minds by Thomson Reuters and one of the world’s 100 most influential people in biotechnology by Scientific American. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

She is coauthor with her husband, Raoul Adamchak, an organic farmer, of ”Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetic and the Future of Food“. Bill Gates calls the book a “fantastic piece of work“ and “important for anyone that wants to learn about the science of seeds and challenges faced by farmers“. Tomorrow’s Table, was selected as one of the 25 most powerful and influential books with the power to inspire college readers to change the world. Her 2015 TED talk has been viewed by 1.7 million people and translated into 26 languages. She founded the UC Davis Institute for Food and Agriculture Literacy to provide the next generation of scientists with the training they need to become effective communicators. In 2019, she received the American Society of Plant Biologists Leadership Award, an honorary doctorate from the Swedish Agricultural University and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2020 she was named a World Agricultural Prize Laureate by the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences. In 2022 Ronald was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture.