Dr. Hilaire Kpongbe is a Postdoctoral Fellow under the Behavioural and Chemical Ecology unit (BCEU). He shall be working on the legumes pest project titled: “Development of a nature-based surveillance system derived from semiochemicals for legume pest control to reduce farmer reliance on environmentally damaging insecticide for crop protection”. He is based at the Duduville Campus.

Dr. Kpongbe holds an MSc degree in Entomology, (Agriculture option) from the University of Abomey Calavi, and a Ph.D. degree in Environmental Sciences, with a background in chemical ecology from Northwest University, South Africa.

Hilaire joined the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Benin as an MSc student in 2013, and as a Research Associate in 2014 where he worked on different aspects of pod-sucking bugs and pod borers. In 2015, he joined icipe as an ARPIS Ph.D. scholar and completed his Ph.D. research work in 2019. As a scholar, he worked on the behavior and electrophysiological mechanisms of legume pests and their parasitoids.

His research focus is developing semiochemical tools for controlling legumes and cereals pests. He is interested in identifying and integrating low cost-natural products and legume pests management approaches toward improved food production and security in Africa.

He worked as a consultant for icipe from August 2019 to June 2020 where he conducted a field trial on the Clavigralla tomentosicollis male aggregation pheromones. Hilaire was awarded a DAAD postdoctoral fellowship in 2021. As a DAAD Postdoctoral Fellow, Hilaire performed field tests on pheromone traps to assess the effect of chemical cues from cowpea organs in the pod borer attraction as well as pod-sucking bugs. Hilaire has also worked as a consultant for other projects such as Biorisk Management Facility (BIMAF), Bioversity International, and Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA). He has served as Manager and Team Leader for the Behavioural and Chemical Ecology Laboratory of IITA, Benin.

Hilaire was awarded the icipe Governing Prize for the best-published science paper by an icipe Scholar in November 2019.