Prof. Robert Mensah is a Director and Senior Principal Research Scientist with 28 years of experience in applied entomology, focusing on the development and commercialization of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and biological products for cotton and other agricultural crops. He has 27 years of experience in agricultural product development and market rollout, and has served as a Technical Specialist with the World Bank, Crawford Fund, Pesticide Action Network (UK & Ethiopia), The Gatsby Trust, and the Chinese Government, delivering IPM programs across Australia, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific in cotton, grains, essential oils, forestry, and cocoa.
His expertise spans strategic R&D planning, operational leadership, budgeting, science mentoring, business development, and technology innovation. Dr. Mensah was named Australian Cotton Industry Researcher of the Year (1997) and received the Public Service Medal (PSM) from the Australian Government (2018) for outstanding research achievements in pest management and long-term contributions to agriculture in Australia and internationally.
He is a two-time Churchill Fellow (2000, 2002), having undertaken research at CABI (Imperial College, UK) and INRA (France). Dr. Mensah was also nominated for the CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science (2009) and was the Australian Cotton Industry’s nominee for the International Cotton Advisory Council’s World Cotton Researcher of the Year Award (2015).
At Nova Business School Africa, Dr. Mensah serves as an Advisor in the Centre for Agribusiness, where he contributes to advancing sustainable agricultural innovation, applied research, and capacity development across the continent.