Dr Priscille Barreaux is a Postdoctoral Fellow under the Human Health Theme (Symbiovector Project) at icipe and is based at Duduville Campus.

Dr Barreaux holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland and worked in collaboration with Penn State University in the US and the Institute Pierre Richet in Ivory Coast. Her PhD focused on the sublethal effects of insecticide on malaria mosquito behaviour. Priscille is a member of the British Ecological Society, Multilateral Initiative on Malaria, Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour and European Society of Evolutionary Biology.

Before joining icipe, she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and built on her knowledge of behavioural ecology and mosquito control to implement methods for in-country field collections and develop entomological indicators to assess the public health value of next-generation mosquito nets used to control malaria transmission. Her other previous engagements include working as a Research Collaborator at the University of Neuchatel where she obtained an MSc in biology of parasites and eco-ethology and a BSc in ethnology and biology. She studied how immune-challenged mosquitoes deal with infection(s) in different environmental contexts and malaria host-parasite interactions. She focused on better understanding parasite-induced manipulation in vectors and its impact on the prevention of malaria transmission.

Her professional achievements are in the areas of vector biology. She studied the mechanisms involved in insecticide resistance (focusing on identifying markers of pyrethroid resistance and cross-resistance) and how it impacts disease transmission in various malarious regions. Her interest areas are in vector biology and applied research to tackle global issues for public health, capacity building and wellbeing. Priscille’s main expertise is in developing phenotypic assays to measure insecticide resistance, combining phenotypic and molecular tools to improve insecticide resistance diagnosis, monitoring, and management. She managed the colonization of mosquitoes derived from the field and trained researchers to perform experiments focused on life history theories, lifelong foraging strategies, transgenerational phenotype plasticity and video-tracked mosquito behaviour.