by Michelle Jeanne C. Caracut
Dr. Roland Neil Perry, a faculty of the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences of the School of Life and Medical Sciences of the University of Hertfordshire, delivered lectures during his two-week stay in the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology.
In his first week, he lectured to Biology graduate students about plant-parasitic nematodes, including life cycle biology, behavior, physiology, and aspects that are relevant to crop protection.
The visiting professor believes that learning about plant-parasitic nematodes are economically important. He said that any crop plant is parasitized by plant-parasitic nematode and results to yield loss since this nematode causes severe damage to crops worldwide including the Philippines.
He added that rice-growing areas have pests that need to be controlled. According to Perry, “the only way to control them effectively is by understanding their biology.” He further said that because a lot of chemicals that have been used in the past are either banned or restricted, one has to think in terms of control so the contribution of education is to make people understand the pest problem, how to help increase the crop yield, at the same time, be environmentally-friendly in detoxifying the land that has been contaminated and know how best to use it again.
On October 18-19, Perry had a two-day lecture and workshop with undergraduate and graduate students from the College of Science and Mathematics, as well as students from other universities within the region on Research Ethics and Techniques in Scientific Writing at the Institute Mini-theater.
As editor of a journal, he discussed on the best way to write a paper, the publication process and writing grants, selecting a journal for publication, exercise in critically evaluating a published paper and exercise in evaluating data sets to focus on main findings.
“To get the university status increased, nation-wide and especially internationally, what my aim was to try and get the students to understand that they have to publish and they have to publish papers in good quality journals,” said Perry, in an interview.
He stated further that the way forward is to publish good quality papers that reflects credit on the individual and credit on the university thereby increasing their international status. “That’s the way forward for the university and it’s (MSU-IIT) certainly going in the right direction,” he commented.
When asked to give a message to MSU-IIT before he leaves, he said “Keep on the track you’re going. Improve international collaborations, international status by improving your research outputs and that way you’ll improve your status worldwide. Make sure the university evolves on that basis to become an internationally renowned university which is based on teaching, publications, and research.”
Topics : environmental sciences medical sciences lecture plant-parasictic nematodes