From informing an experiment’s design and analyzing data to interpreting results and informing decision-making, statistics ensure that research outcomes are both sound and publishable. Because statistics expertise is a key part of strengthening agricultural research capacity, researchers with the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL) recently held an intensive, week-long agricultural statistics course at Cambodia’s Center of Excellence for Sustainable Agricultural Intensification and Nutrition (CE SAIN) at the Royal University of Agriculture in Phnom Penh.
The course was taught by Dr. Nora Bello, professor of systems modeling in the Department of Animal Sciences at The Ohio State University and co-principal investigator (PI) of a FSIL-funded, Cambodian-led research project to reduce foodborne pathogens in nutritious, but highly perishable, salad vegetables in Cambodia. Through this project and others, Bello recognized that Cambodia’s surging research capacity had created a need for more advanced statistics training.