Agenor Mafra-Neto

Dr. Mafra-Neto has developed IP that resulted in several patents, including on autonomous, area-wide monitoring and reporting systems, on smart traps and pest identification sensors His research on sensors, including nanosensors and sensor signals resulted in competitive awards from several agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Defense (DoD), US Army, Air Force, NIST Advanced Technologies Program (ATP) from the Department of Commerce, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) among others. Together with Dr. Eamonn Keogh, he received the first prize in the 2012 Vodafone Americas Foundation's Wireless Innovation Project and a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Grant.

In terms of applied science Mafra-Neto has developed and co-developed several semiochemical tools, devices and strategies for pest management. One such strategy is an inexpensive attract-and-kill system developed for small cotton growers in Brazil. Two examples of more technologically advanced strategies to release semiochemicals are the Metered Semiochemical Timed-Release System (MSTRS) and Specialized Pheromone & Lure Application Technology (SPLAT). The development of the MSTRS or Puffers, resulted in a novel, automated device that holds large quantities of pheromone under pressure, and actively releases exact doses of active ingredients at set intervals throughout a programmed period, proven to control pests in very diverse environments including storage facilities, grasslands and corn fields (Baker et al. 1997 J. Agric.[7]), and cranberry bogs SPLAT is a proprietary base matrix formulation of biologically inert materials used to control the release of semiochemicals and/or odors with or without pesticides. Extensive research on SPLAT using a variety of lures demonstrates that this matrix emits semiochemicals at effective pest suppression levels for a time interval ranging from 2–30 weeks, controlling larvae and adult insect pests.

Agenor Mafra-Neto is a chemical ecology researcher and entrepreneur in the entomological field of insect chemical ecology. He is the CEO of ISCA Technologies, a company specializing in the development semiochemical solutions for pest management, robotic smart traps and nanosensors. Dr Mafra-Neto is the CEO and Director of Research and Development at ISCA Technologies, Inc. which he founded in 1996 in Riverside, California. ISCA Tecnologias, Ltda was founded in Brazil in 1997.

Mafra-Neto came to the U.S. from Brazil in 1988 and received his PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, under the guidance of Ring T. Carde. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Thomas C. Baker at Iowa State University at Ames, and has worked at the Universidade de Alfenas, Universidade de São Paulo Ribeirao Preto, Western Carolina University, and University of California, Riverside. Mafra-Neto is known for his work in the chemical orientation of insects, both basic and applied research. Dr. Mafra-Neto's expertise is in determining an insect's responsiveness to pheromone-containing lures (pheromone trap) and in disrupting their orientation to a pheromone source (mating disruption). Dr. Mafra-Neto has worked on the modification of insect behavior using semiochemicals both in the lab and in the field.