Mathieu Ayenan

Associate Scientist – Vegetable Breeder

Mathieu holds a PhD in Plant Breeding from the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana. His work focuses on developing demand-driven vegetable varieties and strengthening vegetable seed systems.

He joined the World Vegetable Center in 2021 at its regional center in West and Central Africa, where he led variety trials, supported seed system development and seed producer capacity building, and collaborated with national agricultural research systems on variety release and registration.

Since April 2024, he has served as a Vegetable Breeder at the World Vegetable Center. His previous research focused on optimizing high-throughput pollen phenotyping methods; identifying novel sources of heat tolerance in tomato using physiological, morphological, and genomic approaches; quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis; and hybrid development, including the identification of heterotic groups in tomato, and conducting genome-wide association studies for agronomically important traits in potatoes.

He currently leads the WorldVeg okra breeding program in Africa, focusing on delivering market-driven varieties to improve food and nutritional security and stakeholders’ income.