College of Agriculture and Life Sciences honors outstanding alumni
Six former students recognized for exceptional contributions in science, service and innovation
The Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will celebrate six former students whose careers have shaped agriculture, national policy, scientific discovery and public service across the country and around the world. The honorees will be recognized at the Outstanding Alumni Awards on May 1 at the Shirley and Joe Swinbank ’74 AgriLife Center in College Station.
The Outstanding Early Career Alumni Awards recognize former students who have graduated within the last 15 years for outstanding leadership and significant contributions in their careers, public service and volunteer efforts. The 2026 award recipients are Christopher Bielecki ’12 ’15, Ph.D.; Justin Benavidez ’13 ’16 ’18, Ph.D.; and Kendall Howie ’19.
The Outstanding Alumni Award recognizes graduates whose leadership, integrity and character have advanced agriculture, natural resources, life sciences or related areas. This year, the award honors Wayne Hanna ’66 ’68 ’70, Ph.D.; Pamela Barlow ’76, DVM; and Thomas Bernhardt ’01, Ph.D.
“These former students have carried the values of this College into every corner of their careers, from the research bench to the halls of Congress to space,” said Jeffrey W. Savell, Ph.D., vice chancellor and dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences. “We could not be prouder to call them former students of our College.”
Outstanding Alumni Award
Wayne Hanna ’66 ’68 ’70, Ph.D.
Hanna’s career began with a single act of belief from his high school agricultural education teacher, who told him he was going to Texas A&M University and helped make it possible. At Texas A&M, Hanna joined the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, played in the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band and earned three degrees: a bachelor’s in agricultural education, a master’s in plant breeding and a doctorate in genetics. That foundation launched an extraordinary, 55-year career in agricultural science.
His work in turfgrass, millet and forage crops has influenced agriculture worldwide, with turfgrass cultivars he developed used in World Cup and Olympic venues. He has published more than 700 papers, secured 35 patents and released dozens of commercially successful cultivars. Now professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, Hanna is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America and the National Academy of Inventors, and has received the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s, USDA, Distinguished Service Award. He and his wife, Barbara, have established multiple scholarships, including the Leon Kainer Endowed Scholarship in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and he has donated his millet germplasm collection to Texas A&M AgriLife Research.
Pamela Barlow ’76, DVM
Barlow decided early she would be both a veterinarian and an Aggie, submitting only one college application. She arrived in College Station as one of the first women pursuing veterinary medicine at Texas A&M, completing a four-year curriculum in three years and graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Animal Science before earning her veterinary degree. During her graduate work, she was awarded a competitive U.S. Army Health Professions Scholarship and commissioned as an Army officer. That commission led her to Fort Sill, where she led day-to-day operations at a facility focused on food safety and animal-borne disease prevention.
She retired as a lieutenant colonel after 31 years of service, earning multiple Army Achievement Medals and a Meritorious Service Medal. She also helped develop Army regulations that remain in use today. In 1983, while serving as a reservist, Barlow opened Bowie Pet Clinic, which remains a cornerstone of the Bowie community today. She was named the Texas Veterinary Medical Association’s Distinguished Career Achievement Award recipient in 2025 and continues to work full time at her practice.
Thomas Bernhardt ’01, Ph.D.
Since earning his doctorate from the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Bernhardt has built a career defined by curiosity, intellectual courage and a rare ability to recognize opportunity in unexpected results. During his graduate training at Texas A&M, his research revealed a previously unrecognized mechanism of bacterial death, leading to widely read publications and earning him the Nat Sternberg Thesis Prize, an international award for outstanding doctoral work in bacterial molecular biology.
His research has since identified proteins critical to bacterial cell division and uncovered how a class of antibiotics that includes penicillin kills bacteria by triggering a lethal malfunction in cellular machinery. Now a professor at Harvard Medical School and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, one of the most prestigious honors in life sciences, Bernhardt is recognized for both his scientific contributions and his commitment to mentorship.
Outstanding Early Career Alumni Award
Christopher Bielecki ’12 ’15, Ph.D.
Since earning his doctorate from the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications, Bielecki has emerged as a trusted American representative whose work in international agricultural diplomacy is defined by both results and relationships. Serving as agricultural counselor at the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos, Nigeria, through USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, he has represented U.S. agriculture from Washington, D.C., to China, Kazakhstan and Nigeria.
Bielecki helped establish a binational technical exchange that immediately created a $30 million market for U.S. ethanol, secured new market access for U.S. livestock products and supported policy changes that lowered food prices and boosted U.S. wheat exports. He has managed more than $130 million in USDA food security and capacity-building programs across multiple regions. His service has been recognized with the 2025 USDA Under Secretary’s Award for Promoting Sustainable and Climate-Smart Trade and multiple U.S. State Department Franklin Awards.
Justin Benavidez ’13 ’16 ’18, Ph.D.
A first-generation college student and former student of the Department of Agricultural Economics, Benavidez has quickly risen to one of the more influential roles in U.S. agriculture. Appointed USDA chief economist in 2026, he serves as the chief economic advisor to the Secretary of Agriculture and is one of the youngest people to hold this position. His appointment followed three years as chief economist for the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, where he led economic analysis for the 2024 Farm Bill and played a central role in developing agriculture provisions that contributed to more than $60 billion in improvements to the farm safety net.
Before Washington, Benavidez served as an assistant professor and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist in Amarillo, delivering more than 175 presentations, authoring over 178 publications and earning the agency’s 2023 District Educator of the Year Award.
Kendall Howie ’19
Howie has built an exceptional and unconventional record of leadership across food science, commercial spaceflight and the baking industry. She previously served as the world’s first commercial space food scientist, helping design food safety systems for private astronaut missions and NASA‘s next-generation lunar spacesuit at Axiom Space, earning the Johnson Space Center Group Achievement Award. Her consulting work with Interstellar Lab contributed to a project that earned first place in NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge.
Since 2025, she has served as principal food scientist at Middleby Bakery, leading research and development initiatives that support industrial bakeries worldwide and was named one of Commercial Baking Magazine’s 2025 Industry Innovators. She earned her bachelor’s degree in food science and technology from Texas A&M in 2019 and is currently completing her doctorate in the Department of Food Science and Technology, where her research uses electron beam processing to enhance food safety, nutrient stability and quality in prepared foods.
Photos from the ceremony are available for download at tx.ag/2026OutstandingAlumniPhotos.
