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WACCI Student Wins Competition

A final year AGRA sponsored PhD student at the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), Mrs. Dorcas Ibitoye Olubunmi has placed third in the final round, PhD category of The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) and The Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA) Research Paper Competition.

 

Her research paper titled ‘Performance of cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp] hybrids under drought induced and well-watered conditions” has been awarded the third price in the final round of the research paper competition. She competed with other shortlisted researchers from East and West Africa.

Prior to chalking this victory, Mrs. Dorcas Olubunmi Ibitoye was awarded the second prize by a distinguished panel of judges for the same paper in a competition organized by TEEAL and ITOCA for the West Africa Region.

 

Dorcas is a Research Scientist at the National Horticultural Research Institution (NIHORT) in Ibaban, Nigeria. After graduation, she is expected to return to her workplace to take her PhD research forward and to release highly adaptable and high yielding cowpea varieties for water-stressed soils in Nigeria following her training in modern plant breeding for effective and efficient development of superior climate-smart varieties for resource poor farmers.

Currently, Mrs. Ibitoye has returned to WACCI to complete her thesis write-up on the topic “Genetic analysis and identification of quantitative trait loci associated with pre and post flowering drought tolerance in cowpea”.

 

The WACCI team congratulates Dorcas for achieving this feat. We know she will be a game changer and history maker at the NIHORT in the fullness of time.

 

AGRA is commended for funding the innovative PhD programme, at WACCI, which today was ranked the No. 1 out of 22 World Bank Africa Centres of Excellence at a World Bank Project Workshop meeting in Cotonou following evaluation by the Association of African Universities (AAU).