Joan Cherono Kimaiyo grew up in the outskirts of the town of Iten, near the Rift Valley, which is renowned as the capital of distance running, a discipline that Kenya dominates internationally. As the eldest in a family of five, Kimaiyo says her parents encouraged her to pursue a good education. After high school she went directly to JKUAT, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, recently following up with a master’s degree in Research Methods, “so I can better understand the application of statistics to agricultural research,” she says.