Gazali Issah, Graduate Student Representative
I am a second year PhD student in the Department of Soil Science at the University of Saskatchewan under the supervision of Drs. Diane Knight and Jeff Schoenau.I am originally from Ghana where I undertook my undergraduate degree in Natural Resources Management (Agroforestry major) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). I moved to Canada in 2010 and started my masters in the Department of Soil Science at the University of Saskatchewan in winter 2011 on research focused on tree-crop interactions and their impacts on yield and nutrition of forage crops. After my master’s degree, I worked with the Western Applied Research Corporation at Scott, SK as the Field Research Manager engaged in fertility, herbicide efficacy and varietal trials. In the Fall of 2017, I commenced my PhD program on a project funded by the federal Agriculture Greenhouse Gases Program, and as part of a broader research group looking at mitigation strategies in sod-seeded pasture systems, I am focusing on short-term C and N dynamics. With my journey spanning through three disciplines (Agroforestry, Agronomy and Soil Science) through education and work, I am aiming to find synergy among the three disciplines so that as an upcoming Soil Scientist, I can use my knowledge to make a lasting contribution to production agriculture and soil management at both national and international stages. Through my studies, I aspire to widen my understanding of the current developments within the scientific community to be able to collaborate on interdisciplinary projects with more extensive impacts across the spectrum of society.