YB (Yussif Baba) Kassim

I am currently doing my PhD at Wageningen University & Research and University Mohammed VI Polytechnic, and my research focuses on the role of inherent soil fertility and crop management in maize and soybean responses to NPK fertilization. I am using field experimentation and crop growth modelling to study my topic in more detail.

Before that, I worked as Assistant Research Scientist at CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute and contributed to the development of two improved groundnut cultivars (Sarinut 1, Sarinut 2). I also learnt new skills in Field-based high throughput crop phenotyping using unmanned aerial vehicles.

Before that, I did my Masters (MPhil.) in Plant Breeding under The Improved MSc. in Cultivar Development for Africa (IMCDA) Project. The e-learning models developed at IOWA State University under the IMCDA Project sparked my curiosity and interest in R statistical software, Principal component analysis, Mixed-model approach to data analysis, Crop improvement for biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and their application to solving problems confronting African smallholder cropping systems.

Before that, I served as Research and Teaching Assistant at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, after Bachelors degree in Agriculture.