49 SEED TESTING INTERNATIONAL APRIL 2026 • SEED SCIENCE Nick obtained a PhD in statistics in 2017 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He worked in academia as a post-doctoral lecturer and then an Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and then at Iowa State University. He joined Corteva Agriscience in May 2023 where he works as an Applied Statistician in Seed Product Development, supporting research and development of row crops like corn, rice, millet, mustard, cotton and canola. 1. What does your typical workday look like? I work from my desk, analysing data in R, documenting work using Gitlab and Confluence, and meeting with colleagues via MS Teams. 2. How do you know about ISTA and how does ISTA help you in your daily job? A senior colleague at Corteva asked me to join the ISTA Statistics Technical Committee (TCOM). My experiences with ISTA have helped me to consult with Corteva colleagues on seed testing problems. 3. How do you keep in touch with ISTA’s work and its community? I mainly communicate with ISTA through the Statistics TCOM, both with my fellow members and as a consultant with members of other ISTA TCOMs. 4. Have you participated in any ISTA events/ workshops/webinars? Yes, I participated in the Young@ISTA Statistics TCOM workshop in St. Louis, Missouri in April 2025. 5. How have you benefited from these events/ workshops/webinars? Kirk Remund and Jean-Louis Laffont did a great job organising that workshop and used the opportunity to train several new TCOM members in how to approach seed testing problems like method validation and germination testing. 6. Would you recommend students and young researchers to attend similar events/ workshops/webinars? Yes. Workshops provide an opportunity to set aside time and dedicate your full attention to learning the International Rules for Seed Testing (ISTA Rules) and procedures for seed testing. 7. Would you recommend your colleagues and other young researchers to connect with ISTA? Yes, I think someone in a position like mine who works as a statistician in a seed company can benefit from learning about ISTA and best practices in seed testing. It has certainly helped me to broaden my ability to consult with colleagues at my company and help in seed testing problems regarding seed purity and seed health for carryover seed. 8. Can you tell us what you are working on now and how it is related to the seed industry? I mostly work in late stages of seed product research and development to support the experiments that are used to determine which hybrid seed candidates are chosen for commercialisation. One exciting product I work on is reduced stature corn, which is intended to benefit farmers who grow in areas vulnerable to wind damage. 9. Are you a member of one of the ISTA Technical Committees? Why have you joined? Yes, the Statistics TCOM. For decades Jean- Louis Laffont worked as a statistician both at Corteva Agriscience (then Pioneer) and at ISTA. With his retirement I was asked to continue our company’s representation in the Statistics TCOM. 10. How has being a member of the ISTA Technical Committee benefited you? As a member of the Statistics TCOM I have learned about ISTA’s seed testing practices and used that training to help my Corteva colleagues with their seed testing problems. 11. What would you advise ISTA to change or improve? I’m too new to ISTA to make such suggestions, but feel free to ask me again next year! 12. What is your opinion on the future of seed testing? The Statistics TCOM is working hard to improve many existing methods, like heterogeneity testing, and to make more technical tools available using R and R Shiny apps. I think that in the future, laboratories will have more tools available to conduct statistically rigorous analyses. 13. What are your plans for the future? I plan to continue to work with the Statistics TCOM to support the Committee’s routine work as well as develop and revise seed testing methods using modern tools like R and R Shiny. At Corteva, I have an exciting year ahead supporting my colleagues in the breeding organisation. I am particularly excited to continue to develop a new software package for generalised linear mixed models for field trials. Young@ISTA ISTA introduces you to a new generation of seed scientists, who are enthusiastic, eager to learn and talented Participants at the Statistics Technical Committee workshop in St. Louis, April 2025 BIO: Nicholas Syring Corteva Agriscience, USA Applied Statistician
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