Steph Rogers

Anopheles Rearing Development Lead

Steph Rogers was appointed Oxitec’s Anopheles Rearing Development Lead in 2022 and is responsible for the mass rearing of Anopheles albimanus and Anopheles stephensi. She previously worked on honeybees and bumblebees for various projects, moths and butterflies in Laos and a selective breeding research project to explore phenotypic plasticity in the invasive Harlequin ladybird (Harmonia axyridis) during her UCL Master’s dissertation at the University of Cambridge. Her most recent work was a three-and-a-half-year stint working to develop solutions for sustainable protein production, by leading the mass-rearing development of black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens). There, she upscaled breeding by orders of magnitude and developed automated solutions with a handful of engineers. She also lectures in insect science, engineering solutions and sustainability in her spare time.

 Steph is in charge of validating and improving an aquaculture system for the transgenic strains of Anopheles species, as well as designing mass-rearing cages that feasibly deliver insects in the numbers needed to sustain field studies and beyond.