Crawford Fund scholars join global leaders at TropAg
November 2, 2022
Over the past month, we have featured the blogs of 10 young researchers from developing countries who were successful in achieving scholarships from the Crawford Fund’s Queensland Committee and the TropAg International Agriculture Conference.
Our young scholars joined 1000 delegates from over 50 countries converging on Brisbane this week to explore TropAg 2022’s theme “Shaping the Science of Tomorrow,” more particularly, how we feed the world’s spiralling population as we cope with the ravages of climate change. Those living in the tropics and sub-tropics are considered to be on the frontline of such impacts.
The research presented by the scholars at the event is very interesting and covers a diverse range of commodities and areas of expertise, including:
- Janice Mani investigating the antioxidative and anticancer potential of phytochemicals in Australian plants.
- Elena Hoyos researching the biochemical characterisation of the northern Australian-grown black sesame seed as a source of bioactive compounds.
- Tolera Fufa using advanced analytics to improve selection accuracy for yield in resource-limited hybrid maize breeding programs.
- Daniel Otwani aiming to understand the genetic control of grain filling duration in sorghum.
- Pragya Dhakal Poudel focusing on the genetics and physiology of scion vigour in macadamia.
- Trinh Huynh exploring the potential of biochar from forestry biomass waste in Vietnam’s Acacia
- Binh Thi Nguyen’s efforts to improve medicinal plant yield and quality to improve farmer livelihoods.
- Mahendraraj Sabampillai is focused on understanding the physiological determinants of yield potential of pigeonpea.
- Wilfred Wau, investigating the breakdown of sweetpotato bedding roots in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
- Kanwal Shazadi who has a research focus on how post-anthesis water stress can accentuate genotypic differences in late wheat root development.
The successful scholarship candidates were chosen by a selection panel made up of representatives of The Crawford Fund and the TropAg conference organisers, based on submitted abstracts of their research.
The TropAg conference is hosted by The University of Queensland in partnership with the Queensland Government via the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. The Crawford Fund is proud to have been supporting TropAg scholarships since TropAg 2015.
