Summer Xia (Crop Modeler)

Summer Xia works as a crop modeler, after graduating from the University of Lethbridge. She uses these to predict crop growth, and risks of disease and pests in agriculture.

What is your research about?

My research is to build models to predict row crop growth and the risks of major diseases and insect pests in crops. I graduated with a master's degree in biological sciences from the University of Lethbridge.

What made you go into industry or academia? How did you get involved with your current research?

My current job is very similar to my thesis research at grad school that I was enthusiastic about. I am currently hired to develop predictive models in agriculture.

What excites you about your work?

To dig into large amount of collected data and make sense of them; using knowledge learnt from the data to build models to help solve real-world problems

What are the impacts of your work?

Using predictive model to provide insightful information to growers when making crop management decisions

What is a fun fact about yourself?

The reason I got into biology was motivated by American sci-fi movies in the 1900s like Jurassic Park and X-files (although it is more fiction than scientific sometimes). I like forensic science and like to program during my free time.