b'The Daughter of a Great FarmerBORLAUG SCHOLARCatherine Danmaigona Clement is a PhD candidate in the Plant Breeding program at Texas A&M University working on cotton breeding, genetics and genomics with Drs Jane Dever, Libo Shan and Steve Hague. Seed World (SW): How did you get interested in data analysis?Catherine Danmaigona Clement (CDC): I obtained my undergraduate degree in Nigeria, West Africa, and have experienced firsthand the difficulty students have understanding basic concepts and data analysis processes. Oftentimes students pay for their data analysis to be done, and even when this is carried out, there is no guarantee that the concept or the software output is understood or if it was analyzed correctly. In 2019, I traveled to Benin Republic, West Africa, to teach statistical designs and data analysis at an in-person workshop organized by the JRBiotek Foundation for 100 African researchers stemming from 20 countries. At the end of that workshop, 85% of the participants mentioned that the data analysis section was the most impactful. This experience further strengthened my drive to organize more training workshops. To-date, these virtual and face-to-face workshops have impacted thousands of early-career researchers.SW: How did your background influence your career decisions?CDC: My passion and desire for plant breeding research is fueled each time I visit my hometown. I come from a long line of farmers. My last name Danmaigona is translated from a dialect in Nigeria meaning The son of a great farmer. My grandfatherthreatening to destroy the U.S. cotton industry. This new race was renowned in our clan as a very great, successful,of Fusarium wilt can kill susceptible cultivars within just one hardworking and generous farmer. He could feed the wholemonth after planting. Because I love new challenges and I have community from the proceeds of his farming despite using localhad previous experience with this pathogen, it was an excellent tools. As the greatest farmer of his time, he was given thatchoice for me.name Danmaigona by the community. My research is centered on breeding for resistance to Growing up, we mostly grew our food on the vast farmlandFusarium wilt race 4 in upland cotton using genomic tools. From around our house. We had a large portion of land dedicated tothe pathogen angle, we have sequenced up to 35 new strains bananas, plantains, tomatoes, peppers, vegetables, corn, sweetto understand and capture Avr genes responsible for the extra potatoes, spinach, okra, pumpkin, yams and cassava. During har- virulence of this new race and why it is overcoming resistance. vest we share our farm produce with our neighbors, communi- We also use this information to design diagnostics tools for field ties and preserve some to last until the next cropping season. Myisolate classification. love for agriculture eventually influenced my choice of study. On the crop side, we are deploying a genome-wide asso-ciation studies approach and IRenSeq (Immune Receptor-SW: Tell us about your work and why its important. enrichment Sequencing) to sequence 400 lines of upland cotton CDC: I chose cotton because at the time I was applying forand identify resistance loci for introgression into upland cotton graduate school there was an outbreak of a disease that wasgermplasms.SW40/ SEEDWORLD.COMOCTOBER 2021'