Teja Sri Vengala

I originally come from a small town in the southern part of India, where my father does wholesale marketing in rice and is very close with all the farmers in my hometown. I grew up watching fields and farmers as part of my dad's business, and since agriculture is very big in India, I naturally developed an interest in plants. This led me to pursue my bachelor's degree in agriculture from one of the top universities in India. During my undergrad, I was exposed to many departments like agronomy, pathology, entomology, soil science, and plant breeding and genetics. I was particularly drawn to the idea of creating plant varieties suitable for specific agroclimatic regions. After my undergrad, I had good grades and project experiences, so I started shortlisting universities that are top in plant breeding and genetics in the world. Texas A&M College Station is one of them - it's a very big agriculture school. I was interviewed by Dr. Russell Jessup, who is one of the biggest blessings of my life, and he accepted me into his research program. That's how I came to the U.S. to pursue my master's degree in Plant Breeding and Genetics in 2022. I spent my first six months understanding the benefits of industrial hemp, and I was amazed and taken aback by this incredible crop that is useful for food, fiber, construction, medicinal uses, wellness, and has a lot of health benefits. I felt sorry that people don't realize the importance of this crop beyond the misconception that it's just for smoking. I chose my projects around hemp, and my first project was developing heat and drought tolerant hemp varieties suitable for Texas and southern U.S. through recurrent selection. We even donated one of the heat-tolerant varieties to the USDA. My second project was developing a hemp variety with zero cannabinoids only for fiber and grain industries through mutagenesis, which is like speeding up the naturally occurring mutation process. I successfully completed the mutagenesis and am currently in the fifth generation, trying to do seed increase and commercialize the efforts. I have two patents pending around this particular project and publications coming out. I graduated in 2024, got hired as a plant scientist, and was promoted to Lead Plant Scientist in mid-2025. My goal still remains tied to where I come from - I am working to help farmers around the world with this Type 5 hemp variety, and I expect to take my varieties back to India and commercialize them there as well through Rare Earth Genomics.