Dr. Russell Jessup

Dr. Russell Jessup, Professor and Center Director Texas A&M Agrilife Research & Extension Center at San Angelo, managing diverse faculty research efforts across wool and mohair testing, sheep & goat production, rangeland operations, wildlife ecosystems, prescribed fire programs, and row crop agronomics. He further leads the Perennial Grass & Industrial Hemp Breeding programs within the Department of Soil & Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University. Perennial grass efforts target diverse feedstocks (forages, biomass, turfgrasses) and emerging bio-based material commodities (biofuels, biosilica, bioplastics, pyrolized amendments) in parallel with hybrids optimized for C-sequestration and resource-use-efficiency. Hemp improvement efforts include enabling technologies towards inbred lines, triploid hybrids, NIRS chemotyping, phytochemistry, and value-added bioproducts. Dr. Jessup grew up in the Texas Hill Country, served in the US Army (1993-1995), completed his PhD at Texas A&M University (2005), held a post-doctoral position in the USDA-ARS (2005-2007), worked for Mendel Biotechnology as a biofuel feedstock breeder (2007-2009), returned to Texas A& M University in 2009, and assumed the San Angelo Center role in 2025.

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