Getting the opportunity to continue my doctoral studies in Japan was the most valuable opportunity in my life. I am so grateful that I was finally able to complete my studies and return to my home country to dedicate my competencies at UIN Sunan Kalijaga. The struggle to obtain a Ph.D. was not as simple as I had previously imagined. There were many challenges that made my mentality shaky. Persistence, patience, and support from loved ones are my strengths.

I continued my doctoral studies in the Program of Bioresource Science, Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life, Hiroshima University. My research was conducted at the Laboratory of Plant Nutritional Physiology under the guidance of Prof. Akihiro Ueda. My research topic was related to salt stress in rice plants. I screened several types of rice varieties to identify rice that were resistant/tolerant to salt stress, then characterized the mechanism of its resistance to salt stress. The background of this research is the decreasing productive agricultural land throughout the world due to salt stress. Salt stress occurs when there is a high salt content in the soil, and the salt content in the soil is caused by many factors, one of which is climate change.

I identified a local Japanese rice variety (Shuzenji-kokumai) that has a different mechanism compared to previously known salt-tolerant rice (such as the FL478 variety developed by IRRI). After conducting functional analysis, I also identified several new genes that are likely responsible for resistance to salt stress. By knowing the mechanism of rice resistance to salt stress, the development or assembly of new rice varieties that are resistant to salt stress can be carried out. So, we hope that the new rice variety can still grow on land affected by salt stress and rice productivity remains high.

Besides valuable knowledge, there are many things that I got during my stay of 3.5 years in Hiroshima, Japan. One of them is the culture of hard work and discipline. There was a lot of pressure and assertion during the doctoral study process in Japan. The exhausted feeling was not only physical but also mental. Quoting from Tan Malaka, "terbentur, terbentur, terbentur, terbentuk (hit, hit, hit, formed)." Hopefully, after being forged by many things during my doctoral study, I can become a much better person, not only in terms of knowledge.