Enoch G. Achigan-Dako is Geneticist and Plant Breeder. He is associate professor and Head of the Laboratory of Genetics, Horticulture and Seed Science of the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences, University of Abomey-Calavi. Prof. Achigan Dako is an alumni of the African Plant Breeding Academy of the University of California, Davis. He graduated in 1999 as agronomist at the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences of the University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin), received an MSc degree in 2002 at the University of Cocody (Ivory Coast) and a PhD degree in 2008 at the Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg (Germany). He was a researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK, Gatersleben, Germany) with a DAAD scholarship. Enoch Achigan Dako worked for the National Institute of Agricultural Research in Benin (INRAB) from 1999 to 2000 where he was assigned to germplasm conservation and seed ultra-drying technology. He later worked for Bioversity International from 2001 to 2004 as assistant to the regional coordinator of the West and Central Africa office. He joined in 2009 the University of Wageningen as scientific editor of the programme Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA) in Kenya until 2012.

Enoch currently supervised BSc, MSc and PhD students’ research projects. His research focuses on the sustainable use of orphan and underutilized species and crop wild relatives, specifically African horticultural species such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and medicinal plants. He specifically explores how to use wild relatives to improve neglected cultivars with high economic return. Enoch was the winner of the 2008 Vavilov Frankel Fellowship. He contributed more than 60 research papers in in peer-reviewed international journals and local journals.

Enoch is the coordinator of the European Union funded program on ‘’Enhancing training and research mobility for novel crops breeding in Africa’’ (MoBreed). He is also a co-PI of another European Union project on ‘’Mobility for plant genomics scholars to accelerate climate-smart adaptation options and food security in Africa’’ (GENES). Currently, Enoch is the director of the Mastercard Foundation Scholar Programme for the University of Abomey-Calavi.