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Carole Wright

Number crunching to help researchers understand their trials

Carole Wright plays a vital role in many of the banana trials conducted by Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. She works with researchers in trial design and helps make sense of their data. As a biometrician she develops and applies mathematical or statistical theory and methods to collect, organise, interpret, and summarise data to provide insight and meaningful interpretation of results. Carole is based in Mareeba and has been involved in banana research since 2008. She has applied her biometry knowledge to analyse a 

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vast range of banana research including variety trials, bunch pest trials, nutrient rate trials, soil biology trials and crop timing, just to name a few. Carole also works with other industries and is currently developing a model to predict the meat fullness of mud crabs using near-infrared spectroscopy.

‘I get excited when I find something unexpected in the data that the researcher wasn’t necessarily looking for.  I enjoy the variety of work that comes my way and the satisfaction of extracting interesting conclusions from the data that excites the researcher’, Carole said.

Carole grew up in Hastings, New Zealand and attended Waikato University in Hamilton, completing a bachelor degree and Masters of Computing and Mathematical Science.  She worked in agricultural research for 5 years, before returning to university to complete a PhD. Her doctorate involved developing an algorithm to generate resolvable row-column designs which are often used to evaluate large scale field trials. She worked in Victoria, Northern Territory and England, prior to moving to Far North Queensland in 2008.


Carole says she is not renown for her cooking but finds banana and bacon cooked on the BBQ delicious.

In her free time Carole enjoys scuba diving and always looks forward to minke whale season.