Jia-Cih Yang

I’m Tiana from Taiwan. I didn’t grow up in a farming family, but I’m proud to be a first-generation farmer. In 2012, after leaving my PhD program, I co-founded Telome Seedlings with some of my lab mates. We built a plant tissue culture nursery with labs, greenhouses, and sterile rooms to produce healthy seedlings. Our goal is to combine science and smart tech to tackle plant diseases worsened by climate change — especially Fusarium wilt, a fungal disease that harms many crops. Over the past decade, we’ve focused on producing disease-free seedlings, developing resistant varieties, and using beneficial microbes to help crops deal with stress. We grow bananas, strawberries, and papayas in clean lab environments, and work closely with farmers to test and select stronger varieties — even introducing new ones from abroad to increase genetic diversity.