My name is Rodrigue Ogougra Akomonla Adjibogoun born at Glazoué, in Benin and graduate student pursuing PhD program in Plant Breeding at the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana. I have written some research projects with some international researchers. The recent one was with IRRI researchers titled: ‘’Using molecular biology tools to unravel Africa’s rice grain quality determinants’’, which is going to be my PhD research topic.
I hold Master of Science in Biotechnology, (Microbiology and Food Technologies option) at the University of Abomey-calavi (UAC) in Benin, 2012. During my academic program, i mastered skills in several areas including plant breeding. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology, (Microbiology and applications option) in 2010 also at the University of Abomey-calavi (UAC), Benin.
I conducted both my BSc and MSc. research at the Africa Rice Centre, (Genetic diversity and improvement) in the Grains Quality/Eco-physiology and Biotechnology Laboratories on the topics: ‘’Effect of drying method on rice grains quality: correlation between broken and physiochemical and eating properties’’, ‘‘Analysis of genetic characteristics of rice lines obtained by molecular markers’’ respectively where i acquired good practical knowledge on grains quality determinants, genetic diversity studies, marker-assisted breeding, evaluation of agro-morphological traits of rice lines and evaluation of grain quality parameters. During my time in the laboratory, I had a lot of exposures which attributed to my capacity building and made me perform well and was appointed a research technician in the Biotechnology team of staff in 2014. In 2015, i joined the Grain Quality/Postharvest Technology Laboratory at Africa Rice as Post-Master student, where i worked on several research work for development initiatives some of which include analysis of rice post-harvest systems to reduce losses and increase yield and quality, analysis of rice grain quality and how it impacts consumer acceptability and health, and processing of rice and rice by-products for value addition. In 2017, i was appointed Assistant Research Scientist at the Laboratory of Biology and Molecular Typing in Microbiolgy - University of Abomey-calavi. In 2018, i was appointed Benin Field Technical Assistant within the “Africa Program” which is an initiative of Switzerland NGO ( Brucke.Le pont).
I want to pursue this PhD program in order to contribute to Africa Food Security in this climate changing condition by using molecular biology tools to exploit the genomic makeup of Oryza sativa and Oryza glabberima to develop stable molecular markers to improve rice grain quality and traits that can be adaptable to high temperatures in Sub-Saharan Africa.