Menelaos Stavrinides holds a BSc in Agriculture from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, an MSc in Biological Control from Imperial College, London and an MS and PhD in Environmental Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He carried out postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley and has taught undergraduate courses in Ecology and Biology at the same university. He worked as a researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Agricultural Research Institute of Cyprus. His research interests include the biological control of pests, the demographic impacts of pesticides on natural enemies, the evolution of pesticide resistance in insect and mite pests and the effects of plant water stress on pest outbreaks.