In late February, Poultry Hub Australia and Professor Pesti conducted a workshop for 15 higher-degree research students and post-doctoral researchers affiliated with the Poultry Research Group at the University of New England (UNE). Prof Pesti is well versed to present such a workshop with more than five decades of expertise, he has authored three books and published over 200 journal articles in the fields of poultry nutrition and statistical analysis. Gene, based in Georgia, USA, graciously dedicates six months of each year to collaborating with Poultry Hub Australia and sharing his extensive knowledge. The workshop held at UNE was focused on understanding variation in feed and experimental power, which are important aspects to any poultry nutrition project. Prof. Pesti demonstrated a series of computerized workbook tools that he has developed with a series of colleagues over the past three decades. The workbooks were designed to help students and researchers apply what they have learned in biology, mathematics and statistics to designing and analyzing experiments with poultry. The workbooks start with how many samples are needed to be confident of nutrient levels in ingredients and feeds whilst others estimate the variation in mixed feeds from the variation in ingredients. There are workbooks to help visualize experimental power in three dimensions and others that enable you to choose a transformation to normalize data that is not normally distributed.
Di Thi Hiep Dao, an early career postdoctoral researcher within the Poultry Research Group of UNE’s School of Environmental and Rural Sciences attended the workshop and found the workbooks and tools to be most useful “The workshop given by Prof. Gene Pesti is really helpful for my job. It helps me to understand better about data analysis, experimental power, and strategies to achieve study objectives from statistical perspective that is extremely important for a researcher like me. Many thanks to Prof. Gene Pesti and Poultry Hub Australia for organising this workshop.”
This collaborative workshop aimed to provide valuable insights and empower researchers with practical tools, thereby contributing to the growth and innovation of the poultry research community. These tools are available on the Poultry Hub website and are just one of the ways that PHA continues to support poultry researchers in Australia.
