Anatomy of a science meeting: How controversial pesticide research all but vanished from a major conference

If you scroll through the social media posts for the 2023 meeting of the Entomological Society of America, one face jumps out: The Corteva guy.

It’s the face that greeted the 3,000 attendees of the meeting every time they opened the conference app: A smiling, balding man in early middle age, presumably an entomologist, wearing a plaid shirt.

This face of Corteva Agriscience, one of several agrochemical companies that has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the organization over several years, was so omnipresent that the insect scientists posted memes about it.

Abigail M. Hayes, a postdoctoral researcher, posted: “Shout out to the #Entsoc23 app for letting me hang out with Corteva guy until the very end – I wonder if I leave the app installed and don’t update, will he stay until next year?”

For $65,000, the pervasive “Corteva guy” ad – a slot that was exclusively held by Corteva in 2023 – is just one of the dozens of benefits in packages that corporations can purchase this year through a partnership program from the Entomological Society of America, whose conference is considered the Super Bowl of meetings in the field.

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