Dr Thomas Dubois joined icipe as Head of Plant Health Theme in March 2019. Dr Dubois holds a PhD in Entomology from Cornell University, USA and an MSc degree in Bioengineering from University of Ghent, Belgium. He brings to icipe over 15 years’ experience in plant health for several crops in Africa.

At IITA, he served as a scientist from 2003 to 2012, where he worked initially on native endophytes in banana, but also pioneered the use of commercial biopesticides as ‘artificial’ endophytes. He then switched to tissue culture marketing systems of banana and conducted research in making banana an income-generating crop with private companies. In 2012, he became co-manager of all aflatoxin-related activities in maize and groundnut, using the innovative biocontrol product ‘Aflasafe’. For the period he was at IITA, he contributed to the mobilization of US$ 6.2 million.

In 2013, while at Africa Rice, Dr. Dubois briefly headed a USD 15.6 million grant of the African Development Bank, which aimed at improving rice value chains in 11 African countries. Between 2014-2018, he was the regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa at the World Vegetable Centre (WorldVeg). He represented and provided strategic leadership to WorldVeg in the region through managing a diverse team in various locations and kicked off the revamping of WorldVeg’s global strategy in 2016.

In 2006, Dr. Dubois received the young promising scientist award from the CGIAR ( Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research).Dr Dubois has been an invited expert for FAO’s commission on genetic resources, for UNCTAD on sanitary and phytosanitary issues, for USDA on regional biopesticide regulations, and for COMESA on biotechnology policies. He has >100 publications to his credit, including several books, book chapters and >70 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has also supervised and trained 35 MSc and PhD students.