Dr. Thomas Odong Lapaka
Dr. Odong attained his PhD in Statistical Genetics from Wageningen University, Netherlands in 2012. His areas of expertise include Biometry (Applied Statistics), Research Methods, Statistical genetics and Bioinformatics. He has about 20 years of extensive experience in Biometry/statistical consulting and lecturing. He has been providing technical backstopping in areas of study design and data analysis to several local and international researchers (NARO, IITA, CIP, FAO). He is currently a Senior lecturer at the School of Agricultural Sciences, Makerere University where he teaches applied statistics, Population and Quantitative Genetics. One of his papers won “The 2014 Outstanding Paper in Plant Genetic Resources award” of the American Crop Science Society. From December 2011 to June 2013, Dr Odong was awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship under Ecological and Evolutionary Functional Genomic Project at the Laboratory of Bioinformatics at Wageningen University. As a Post-doc, he worked on SNP discovery using Next Generation Sequencing Data.
Dr Odong has facilitated more than 30 trainings/workshops (Research methods, experimental design, Data analysis using R statistical software) at national and international level. Dr Odong regular conduct both online and physical training in data analysis using R statistical software. He has trained 500 Scientists from Africa and Asia.
As a visiting lecturer, he has taught at Africa Center of Crop Improvement, (ACCI) University of KwaZulu Natal (2014), West Africa Center of Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana (2015, 2016), University of Namibia (2014) and University of Zimbabwe (2007, 2021, 2022)
He also has extensive experiences in research project management, students’ supervision, and mentoring. He is currently coordinating Intra-Africa Academic mobility project (SCIFSA) a partnership five African Universities (Cairo University, Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, Makerere University, University of Eldoret and University of Ghana). He is a great team player with experiences in working with a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural environment. He has published over 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals. Download his CV below.