Posted on January 3rd, 2024 in Research Profile
![Dr. Navin Sreng](https://ag.purdue.edu/food-safety-innovation-lab/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/20240103.png)
Upon returning to Cambodia in 2016 after four years abroad, Navin Sreng found herself at an unexpected crossroads in her scientific career. She had a newly minted Ph.D. in biology in hand from France’s prestigious Paul Sabatier University, where she attended on full scholarship, and had her sights set on a faculty position back home.
“The scholarship had a requirement that when I finish my studies, I come back to help my home country,” says Sreng, who grew up in Phnom Penh to a middle-class family. “And when I was in France, I was close to a Cambodian lecturer who advised me that I should work for a university.”