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Section Convenors

Peter Schausberger

University of Vienna, Austria

Peter Schausberger is a multidisciplinary entomologist whose research integrates ideas from animal behavior, ecology and evolution. He primarily studies plant-inhabiting mites, employing a hypothesis-driven, manipulative experimental approach. His accolades include various prestigious scientific grants, chairmanship of international scientific societies and invited professorships at the University of Tsukuba and Kyoto University, Japan. He is an editor of several scientific journals and serves on various international expert panels (Belgium, Poland, Europe). In terms of research output and impact, he is consistently ranked among the top 1% of entomologists worldwide (Ioannidis’s C-score).

Charles Haddad

University of the Free State, South Africa

Coming soon.

Davina Sacaggi

Citrus Research Council, South Africa

Coming soon.

Silvia Cappellozza

Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economy Analysis (CREA), Italy

Coming soon.

Alessio Saviane

Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economy Analysis (CREA), Italy

Dr. Alessio Saviane is a Researcher at CREA Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Italy, with more than two decades of experience in silkworm biology and sericulture research. His work focuses on the conservation, characterization and enhancement of genetic resources of both the silkworm (Bombyx mori) and mulberry (Morus spp., particularly M. alba), supporting their sustainable use in agriculture, research and biotechnology. His research encompasses silkworm breeding, host-pathogen interactions, microbiology, circadian regulation, and the application of advanced biotechnological tools, including transgenic and CRISPR-based approaches in B. mori. He has contributed to the development of innovative methodologies for silkworm production and management, as well as the use of silk and silkworm-derived biological resources in research and applied biotechnology. Dr. Saviane has established collaborations with companies and both academic and research institutions across different countries and is author and co-author of numerous scientific publications in the fields of sericulture and Bombyx mori biology.

Theresa Wossler

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Coming soon.

George Heimple

University of California, Davis, USA

Coming soon.

Costas Zachariades

ARC, Western Cape, South Africa

Coming soon.

Paulo H. G. Zarbin

Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR), Brazil

Coming soon.

Abdullahi Ahmed Yusuf

University of Pretoria, South Africa

Coming soon.

Stéphane Boyer

University of Tours, France

Stephane Boyer is a Professor in animal ecology and genetics at the Insect Biology Research Institute (IRBI), University of Tours. Throughout his career, he has worked on the conservation of a wide variety of animal species, the evaluation of ecosystem services, the biological control of invasive species, and the restoration of highly degraded ecosystems. His experience as a scientist has led him to inventory cockroaches on tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, map the distribution of mosquitoes throughout Belgium, understand the role of native earthworms in open-cast coal mines in New Zealand and, since 2017, focus mainly on insect communities in agricultural and forested areas in France. His main expertise lies in molecular analyses of ecological interactions and the development of non-invasive DNA sampling methodology for the monitoring of biodiversity, the conservation of endangered animal species, and the biological control of pest species.

James Pryke

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Professor James Pryke is a conservation ecologist and entomologist at in the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University. His research explores how biodiversity can be conserved in agricultural, forestry and other transformed landscapes. He also considers the design and management of remnant vegetation to protect functionally important insects. He integrates landscape ecology, insect conservation, agroecology and functional ecology to develop practical approaches that support biodiversity, pollination, natural pest regulation, soil health and ecological resilience. He is co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Insect Conservation and lead editor of Routledge Handbook of Insect Conservation. His work connects ecological science with conservation practice in working landscapes.

Diana Pérez-Staples

Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico

Instituto de Biotecnología y Ecología Aplicada (INBIOTECA), Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico

Email: diperez@uv.mx

Diana Pérez-Staples is a Research Professor at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. Her research focuses on the sexual behaviour and reproductive physiology of tephritid fruit flies and other insect pests, and on improving current control methods especially through the Sterile Insect Technique. She is particularly interested in post-mating interactions, and how male seminal fluids affect female behavior in invasive and economically important species. She is Associate Editor for npj Entomology and has been on the editorial board for Bulletin of Entomological Research, Current Opinion in Insect Science, Current Research in Insect Science and Journal of Insect Physiology.

Kehinde Kemabonta

University of Lagos, Nigeria

Coming soon.

Renee Borges

Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

Renee M. Borges is Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. She is an evolutionary ecologist interested in species interactions especially those involving mutualism and parasitism. She works on a diversity of model systems that include figs and fig wasps, ant-plants, fungus-farming termites, potter wasps and ant-mimicking spiders. She is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Biosciences, and on the Editorial Board of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and Journal of Chemical Ecology. She is currently President of the International Union for Biological Sciences (IUBS).

Susana Clusella Trullas

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

I am a physiological ecologist in the Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University, where I lead the CL•I•M•E lab. I am also affiliated with the Centre for Invasion Biology and the School for Climate Studies at the same University. My research group studies how ectotherms respond to environmental change, combining experimental and field-based approaches to address ecological and theoretical questions. We use non-traditional insect models, including fascinating beetles, and examine climate-related stressors, their interactions with biological invasions, and global patterns of functional traits based on insect data compiled from the literature.

Francesca Scolari

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy

Molecular Entomology Laboratory, Institute of Molecular Genetics of the National Research Council (IGM-CNR), Pavia, Italy.

E-mail: francesca.scolari@cnr.it

Dr Francesca Scolari is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the National Research Council (IGM-CNR, Pavia, Italy), where she leads the Molecular Entomology Laboratory. Her research focuses on insect physiology, metabolism and functional genomics, with applications to sustainable control of agricultural pests and disease vectors. She has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications and is actively involved in international research projects. She has been a member of the Steering Committee of TEAM – Tephritid workers of Europe, Africa and the Middle East – since 2010.

Gudrun Dittrich-Schroder

FABI, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Dr Gudrun Dittrich-Schröder is a Research Fellow at the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI), University of Pretoria, South Africa. She holds a BSc (Agric) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, an MSc on the molecular identification of scarab beetles, and a PhD from the University of Pretoria on the molecular ecology and management of the invasive eucalyptus gall wasp Leptocybe invasa.

Her research uses molecular tools, including population genetics, next-generation sequencing and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, to manage insect pests in agriculture and forestry. Her earlier work covered invasion biology, the discovery and evaluation of biological control agents, and host resistance in Eucalyptus. As a FLAIR Fellow (African Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society), she developed gene-editing approaches for controlling major insect pests. Her work advances genetic approaches to pest management in support of food security and sustainable agriculture.

Chizu Sanjoba

The University of Tokyo, Japan

Coming soon.

Ken Okwae Fening

SIREC, Ghana

Prof. Ken Okwae Fening holds a BSc. Hons. (Zoology) and M.Phil. (Entomology) from the University of Ghana, and a PhD in Agricultural Entomology from Kenyatta University in Kenya. Prof. Fening is an Associate Professor of Agricultural Entomology at the University of Ghana’s Soil and Irrigation Research Centre whose work heavily intersects with insect pathology and biocontrol. While his overarching focus is on integrated pest management, his contributions to insect pathology specifically centre on utilising entomopathogenic fungi as biopesticides to control major agricultural pests. He has collaborated on evaluating the effects of potent entomopathogenic fungal isolates—such as Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana—and examining how these fungal pathogens interact with natural insect parasitoids like Telenomus remus to improve pest mortality rates. Beyond fungal pathology, Prof. Fening investigates how insect vectors transmit plant diseases. He is actively involved in collaborative research tracking the bio-ecology and transmission pathology of the Banana Aphid, Pentalonia nigronervosa and the devastating Banana Bunchy Top Disease in Ghana.

Fleur Ponton

Macquarie University, Australia

Fleur Ponton is Head of the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University (Australia) and an insect biologist whose research spans nutritional ecology, host–symbiont interactions, insect health and applied entomology. Her research investigates the complex interactions between nutrition, microbiota, immunity and environmental conditions in shaping insect health and fitness. A major focus of her current work is pollinator health, particularly understanding interactions between bees and their parasites and pathogens and developing environmentally sustainable approaches to disease and pest management. This includes investigating probiotic-based approaches to support honey bee health and developing fungal entomopathogens as sustainable biological control agents for Varroa mites. More broadly, her research examines how environmental factors, including nutrition and climate change, influence host–symbiont interactions in insects.

Jeremy Herren

ICIPE, Kenya

Coming soon.

Sevgan Subramanian

International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Kenya

Principal Scientist and Head,
Environmental health theme,
International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe),
P.O. Box No. 30772-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
Phone : +254 (20) 8632159 ; Fax: +254 (20) 8632001/2
Email : ssubramania@icipe.org

Dr Sevgan Subramanian is a Principal Scientist at icipe who heads the Environment and Biodiversity Thematic Research Program. Dr Subramanian holds a PhD in Agricultural Entomology from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India. He has over 20 years of research for development (R4D) experience in Africa.

His significant research contributions are in areas of development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies for horticultural and staple food crops; biopesticide research and development; climate-change impacts and adaptation, and edible insects. He has more than 180 publications, including book chapters and online thrips identification tools. Dr Subramanian’s partnership extends across ~40 organizations in 18 countries from 6 continents. In 2018, he was awarded the “Outstanding Professional Staff of the Year 2017,” at icipe. In 2020, his Insects for food, feed and other uses program (INSEFF) recieved the prestigious, “Curt Bergfors food planet prize 2020”. In 2021, he was elected a Fellow of the Entomological Society of India. In 2023, he was the Third Ranked Researcher and in 2025, he was ranked top in Agricultural and Biological Sciences in Kenya. He has mentored 6 Postdoctoral researchers, 13 PhD and 8 MSc degree scholars, and been involved in several undergraduate trainings. Apart from his professional entomology research focus, Dr Subramanian has a keen interest in photo documentation of Arthropod and bird biodiversity of East Africa.

For detailed publication list and profile:

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N7uCFRMAAAAJ&hl=en

Research gate:  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sevgan_Subramanian

iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/people/subbi

Saliou Niassy

AU-IAPSC, Cameroon

Coming soon.

Karin Schioler

University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Coming soon.

Shüne Oliver

National Institute for Communicable Diseases/University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Coming soon.

Mark Wright

University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA

Coming soon.

Antonio Biondi

University of Catania, Italy

Antonio Biondi is Full Professor in General and Applied Entomology and Coordinator of the PhD Course in Agricultural, Food and Environmental Science. He got a PhD in Crop protection at the University of Catania in 2012. He worked, as visiting or as post-doc at the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA) (Moncada, Spain), the Institut National de Recherche Agronomique (INRA), the University of Minnesota and the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2015, he teaches classes in Applied Entomology and Integrated Pest Management to undergraduate and master students at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Catania.  Prof. Biondi gave several invited talks at numerous national and international congresses, and he took part to several national and international research projects on various topics related to the sustainable control of insect pests in agro-ecosystems. Most of the scientific results have been published in peer-reviewed journals, and he got awarded by the yearly title of Highly cited researcher (Clarivate) and of World Top 2% Scientists (Elsevier) since 2019. He serves as Editor in Chief for Journal of Pest Science.

Brett Hurley

FABI, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Brett Hurley is a Professor of Forest Entomology at the University of Pretoria and a researcher in the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI). His research focuses on the ecology, management and biological control of invasive forest insect pests, particularly in plantation forestry systems. He works extensively across Africa and internationally on forest health, invasion biology and integrated pest management, with a strong emphasis on translating research into operational management. His work includes collaborations with industry, government and international research networks, and he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, numerous book chapters, technical and policy-oriented outputs, and the first book on biological control in plantation forests.

Honest Machekano (PhD)

University of Pretoria, South Africa

Dr. Honest Machekano, a DAAD scholar alumnus, is an Entomologist and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. His research focuses on broader aspects of applied entomology, including non-chemical alternatives to insect pest management, agroecological and biological pest control, and trophic-level insect adaptation to climate stress. In addition, he is a specialist in stored-product entomology, applying knowledge of insect physiology to develop low-cost, physical control methods for grain and other stored commodities. Dr. Machekano has authored and co-authored over 50 research articles in high-impact journals (including invited reviews), largely focused on solving entomological problems for small-scale farming systems in southern Africa. He has participated in over 10 international grants, including GCRF, Horizon Europe, DAAD, and DFG, and currently holds prestigious IDRC-RECAF and the NRF grants. Dr. Machekano sits on Editorial boards as a Managing Editor for the International Journal of Tropical Insect Science (Springer) and as a Guest Editor for a special issue in Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health (COESH) (Elsevier) and for a Special Issue in Diversity (MDPI). Honest teaches invertebrate biology, applied entomology, and integrated pest management at the University of Pretoria and has supervised and co-supervised about 30 students, including 5 active PhD students in his lab. His research profiles are publicly available on Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bbtuWvgAAAAJ&hl=en) and ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Honest-Machekano?ev=hdr_xprf).

Leigh Boardman

University of Memphis, USA

Coming soon.

Chloé Lahondère

Dept. of Biochemistry - Virginia Tech, USA

Chloé Lahondère is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech (USA). She is affiliated with Center for Emerging, Zoonotic and Arthropod-borne Pathogens, the Global Change Center, and the Department of Entomology. Her research focuses on how disease-vector arthropods interact with their hosts (both animals and plants), pathogens, and the environment, with a strong emphasis on the role of temperature in shaping these interactions. Her work relies on a collaborative, multidisciplinary, and integrative approach that combines fieldwork, behavioral and physiological analyses, molecular biology, chemical ecology, and electrophysiology.

John Terblanche

Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Prof. John S. Terblanche is a professor of insect physiological ecology in the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His research investigates how environmental stressors, particularly climate change, moisture and temperature extremes, shape the metabolic, physiological, and genetic responses of insects. By bridging macroscopic climate modeling with ground-level microclimates, coupled with functional physiology, his work contributes to enhanced predictions of biodiversity loss and invasive pest range shifts. His significant contributions have earned him the prestigious Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) President’s Medal and the NRF President’s Award. Globally recognized for his expertise in insect thermal limits and gas exchange mechanics, he actively serves on editorial boards of several journals and is the co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Insect Physiology, driving international dialogue on ecological resilience and climate adaptation.

Tom Bishop

Cardiff University, Wales

Tom Rhys Bishop is an insect ecologist and physiologist. Tom studied at Oxford, Imperial College London, and Liverpool before moving to Pretoria for a research fellowship. He undertook another fellowship at the University of Liverpool before moving to Cardiff University for a lectureship. His work focusses on social insects and blends aspects of community ecology, macroecology, and ecophysiology to describe and understand social insect diversity patterns.

Christian Pirk

University of Pretoria, South Africa

Coming soon.

Kurt Jordaens

Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium

Coming soon.

John Midgley

KZN Museum, South Africa

Coming soon.

Marcel Dicke

Wageningen, The Netherlands

Marcel Dicke is an insect ecologist interested in multitrophic insect-plant interactions, insects for food and feed and insects in culture. He chaired the Laboratory of Entomology at Wageningen University & Research from 2003-2024. One of his discoveries is that plants respond to feeding by herbivorous insects with the production of odours that attract the enemy of their enemy (coined ‘crying for help by the plant’). He focusses on fundamental research as a firm basis for exploring opportunities to use insects to solve societal problems and challenges. Dicke enjoys transferring scientific knowledge to the general public. In 2006 he led a team that organised the festival Wageningen, City of Insects that attracted > 20,000 visitors. He is one of the authors of The Insect Cookbook (Columbia University Press, New York, USA). See also Marcel Dicke’s TED talk “Why not eat insects?“: https://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects?language=en.   

Caswell Munyai

University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Caswell Munyai is an Associate Professor in the School of Agriculture and Science at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. My research focuses on arthropod biodiversity and ecology, particularly ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), spiders and beetles as indicators of environmental change in various terrestrial ecosystems. I investigate how disturbance, land-use transformation, climate variability, and biological invasions shape invertebrate communities across natural and managed landscapes. My research also integrates entomophagy, cultural entomology, and aspects of agricultural entomology, examining arthropods in food systems, livelihoods, and pest dynamics. Through field ecology, biodiversity informatics, and macroecological analyses, my research addresses problems related to biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, invasive species management, and food security in the Global South.

Jenipher Carol Tairo

Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Jenipher Carol Tairo is an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Crop Science and Horticulture at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, and a PhD researcher specializing in entomology and crop protection. Her research focuses on modelling the current and future distribution of two fruit fly species: Ceratitis rosa and Ceratitis quilicii for phytosanitary planning.

 She teaches entomology and crop protection and is actively involved in student training, farmer outreach and science communication. Through her academic and public-engagement work, Jenipher is committed to making insect science accessible and using research to support sustainable agriculture, food security and climate-resilient pest management.

David Giron

University of Tours, France

Dr. David Giron is an entomologist with a rich and integrative scientific approach, merging research, training, innovation, and public engagement. With several years of expertise in insect nutrient acquisition and allocation strategies, his work bridges functional and evolutionary ecology to unravel the adaptive mechanisms driving insect interactions with their biotic environment-be it through host-parasitoid dynamics or complex plant-insect-microorganism relationships. His research, rooted in nutritional ecology and evolutionary ecophysiology, delves into the evolution of the endophytic lifestyle and the role of endosymbiotic bacteria in host-plant manipulation. A Ph.D. graduate in Ecology from the University of Tours (2002) and a former postdoc at the University of Bangor (Wales) and at the University of Georgia (USA), Dr. Giron has been Director of the Insect Biology Research Institute (IRBI) since 2015 and is a CNRS senior researcher. He is strongly committed to empowering and training the next generation of scientists through EU-funded, international Master’s and Ph.D. programmes, dedicated workshops, summer schools, and other capacity-building initiatives, while actively promoting inclusion, diversity, and the fight against discrimination in all its forms. Beyond the lab, he designs instruments, advises on scientific and institutional projects, and leads major interdisciplinary initiatives across scales-always guided by a systemic view of insects as ecological, economic, sociological, and even artistic actors.