PhD & Postdoc

Nina Okafor

Plant Genetics · International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

Nina Okafor is a PhD candidate in Plant Genetics at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, supervised by Prof. Bunmi Bello. Her thesis develops and validates genomic selection prediction models for simultaneously improving cassava fresh root yield, dry matter content and cassava brown streak disease resistance in Nigerian farming system environments, using 15,000-SNP genotyping arrays and best linear unbiased prediction algorithms. Six publications in Plant Genome, Molecular Breeding and Euphytica document her model accuracy and cross-validation results. Nina received an AfricaRice postgraduate fellowship and participated in the NextGen Cassava breeding consortium. She has been recruited by Syngenta's African crop science team to lead cassava genomic improvement programmes and was awarded the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation food security prize. Her genomic selection models show 35-percent higher prediction accuracy than pedigree-based methods for combined drought and disease resistance.

Thesis Topic

Genomic selection for cassava yield and disease resistance in Nigerian farming systems

Transition Signals